THE  MYSTERY  OF  HAMLET. 


AN  ATTEMPT  TO  SOLVE  AN  OLD  PROBLEM. 


BY 

EDWARD  P.  VINING. 


"  You  would  pluck  out  the  heart  of  my  mystery.' 


PHILADELPHIA: 
J.   B.   LIPPINCOTT   &   CO. 

1881. 


Copyright,  1881,  by  E.  P.  VIXING. 


TO 

'HORACE  HOWARD  FURNESS, 

BY    WHOSE    UNRIVALLED 

VARIORUM  EDITION  OF  SHAKESPEARE 

ALL   AMERICA    IS    HONORED, 

AND  TO  WHOSE  WORK  THE  WRITER  IS  INDEBTED  FOR  THE  QUOTATIONS 
PRESENTED  IN  SUPPORT  OF  HIS  VIEWS, 

THIS   ESSAY 

IS    RESPECTFULLY    DEDICATED. 


854941 


PREFACE. 


THE  views  set  forth  in  this  little  work  not  only  suffer 
from  the  lack  of  literary  experience  upon  the  part  of  him 
by  whom  they  are  presented,  but  they  are  in  themselves 
so  different  from  those  which  have  usually  been  held  in 
relation  to  the  character  of  Hamlet,  that  but  little  favor 
can  be  hoped  for  them.  That  most  will  pass  them  by  in 
silence,  and  that  some  will  crush  them  beneath  the  weight 
of  their  scorn,  may  be  expected.  No  theory  could  offer 
a  more  inviting  target  for  the  shafts  of  ridicule ;  none 
could,  at  first  sight,  seem  more  absurd. 

If  true,  why  lias  no  one  seen  the  truth  before  ?  Who 
can  tell !  The  art  of  Shakespeare  was  used  to  reveal  the 
character  yet  conceal  its  real  nature.  Many  have  seen 
something  of  the  truth,  but  stopped  just  short  of  discovery. 
All  have  recognized  the  human  character  of  Hamlet,  and 
yet  all  have  failed  to  discern  the  true  type  of  that  human- 
ity through  the  disguises  by  which  it  was  clothed. 

The  new  may  be  true.  Even  that  which  at  first  seems 
an  absurdity  may,  upon  investigation,  prove  to  be  the  sober 
reality.  It  is  something  to  see,  or  to  believe  that  one  sees.  V 
the  path  that  Shakespeare  followed, — to  observe  how  dif- 
ficulties were  met, — how,  with  the  growth  of  his  power, 
he  learned  to  substitute  Hamlet's  inherent  personality  as 
the  origin  of  the  prolongation  of  the  movement  of  the 
drama,  for  the  extraneous  events  which,  in  its  earlier  form, 
were  the  causes  of  the  delay.  It  is  something  to  watch  , 


G  PREFACE. 

his  dalliance  with  an  idea  at  first  forced  upon  him,  and 
then  fondled  with  delight ;  to  see  with  what  skill  he  re- 
moves that  which  is  incompatible  with  this  cherished 
conceit ;  to  note  the  delicate  touches  by  which  he  allows 
glimpses  of  the  fancy  to  be  shown,  and  yet  the  ingenuity 
with  which  it  is  kept  hidden. 

If  this  patient  laborer,  recasting  his  work  with  loving, 
tender  care,  and  moulding  into  it  his  most  precious  imagi- 
nation, be  not  Shakespeare,  but  only  the  creation  of  a 
dream,  then  to  him  to  whom  the  vision  can  come  the 
dream  has  all  the  reality  and  pleasure  of  truth. 

Assuming  the  theory  to  be  absolute  truth,  there  are 
many  to  whom  it  would  be  but  foolishness.  It  is  not  to 
be  supposed  that  those,  for  instance,  who,  in  reading  the 
tragedy,  can  blindly  stumble  over  a  series  of  careful  dis- 
closures of  the  length  of  time  covered  by  its  action,  and 
find  no  clue  thereto,  can  see  a  truth  which  Shakespeare 
has  used  all  his  art  to  conceal. 

There  are  many  who  would  like  to  like  these  immortal 
dramas  and  who  are  ignorant  of  their  failure  ;  many  who 
criticise  their  perfections  with  as  little  appreciation  as 
Bottom  had  for  fairies'  fare ;  many  to  whom  oats  and  hay 
are  sweeter  than  the  ambrosia  of  the  gods. 

Therefore,  reader,  smile  with  disdain  or  laugh  in  ridi- 
cule if  to  you  it  seem  good.  The  fault  may  be  in  the 
writer,  or  it  may  be  in  you.  Who  shall  decide  ?  If  for 
you  the  following  pages  contain  no  truth,  open  no  new  in- 
sight into  the  mind  of  the  world's  great  poet,  then  they 
are  not  for  you.  They  are  for  those  only,  be  they  many 
or  few,  to  whom  they  contain  a  revelation. 

EDWARD  P.  VINING. 

OMAHA,  NEBRASKA,  July  3,  1881. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER    I. 

THE    EXISTENCE    OF    A    MYSTERY. 

PAGE 

Introduction — "  Hamlet"  the  Chief  of  Shakespeare's  Dramas — The 
Inconsistencies  of  its  Hero — The  Depth  of  Humanity  revealed 
in  his  Character — The  Existence  of  a  Mystery — Recognition  of 
the  Mystery  by  Hudson,  Dowden,  Tyler,  SchJegel,  Klein,  Her- 
mann Freiherr  von  Friesen,  and  Furness — Goethe's  Solution — 
His  Dissatisfaction  with  it — Query  as  to  its  Nature  .  .  .11 

CHAPTER    II. 

THE    HISTORY    OF    THE   STORY. 

Examination  of  the  History  of  the  Tragedy — The  Second  Quarto 
— Discovery  of  the  First  Quarto — Differences — The  Custom  of 
revising  Older  Works — The  Pre-existence  of  the  Story  of  "Ham- 
let"— Saxo  Grammaticus — Francis  de  Belleforest — Existence  of 
a  Drama  named  "Hamlet"  in  1589 — The  Play  presented  in  1594 
—References  to  it  in  1596,  1598,  and  1602— The  Ghost  intro- 
duced in  this  Drama,  but  not  in  the  Earlier  Story — Reasons  for 
believing  Shakespeare  to  be  the  Author  of  the  Play  of  1589 
— His  Early  Poverty — Birth  of  Twin  Children  named  Hamnet 
and  Judith — Removal  to  London  in  1586 — His  Purchase  of 
Shares  in  the  Blackfriars  Theatre  in  1589 — Means  could  have 
been  obtained  only  by  the  Production  of  a  Successful  Play — 
"  Hamlet"  produced  at  just  this  Time — Quotation  from  Nash — 
Probability  that  he  intended  to  describe  the  Youthful  Shake- 
speare —  Thomas  Green  —  Shakespeare's  Acquaintance  with 
Legal  Phraseology  . 17 

CHAPTER    III. 

DIFFERENT   VERSIONS    OF   THE   STORY. 

Examination  of  the  Theory  that  the  First  Quarto  :s  merely  a 
Mangled  Piratical  Version  of  the  Play  as  given  in  the  Second 
Quarto — Changes  in  the  Lines  of  the  Player  King — Shake- 

7 


8  CONTENTS. 

PACK 

speare's  Intuitive  Knowledge — Reasons  for  believing  the  Play 
to  have  been  recast  Several  Times — The  Appeal  for  Revenge — 
The  Ghost  inspired  by  a  Yearning  for  Sympathy  and  by  Love 
for  the  Queen — "Fratricide  Punished" — The  Prologue — Its 
Resemblance  to  the  Introduction  to  the  Second  Part  of  "  King 
Henry  Fourth" — Change  in  the  Names  of  the  Characters  and  in 
their  Number — Change  in  Hamlet's  Stratagem — The  Division 
of  the  Drama  into  Acts — Its  Difficulty — Changes  and  Transpo- 
sitions of  Scenes — Reasons  for  delaying  Action — Absence  of 
Hamlet's  Distinguishing  Peculiarities — Date  of  the  German 
Drama — The  Expedition  to  Portugal — The  Allusion  to  Roscius  25 

CHAPTER    IV. 

THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  HAMLET'S  CHARACTER. 
The  Revisions  of  the  Drama — Reason  for  Meres's  Failure  to  men- 
tion it — The  Practice  of  rewriting  Old  Plays — The  Improve- 
ment the  Sufficient  Excuse  for  the  Appropriation — The  Depth 
of  Meaning  in  the  Incidental  Allusions  in  "  Hamlet" — This 
Perfect  Art  the  Result  of  Long-Continued  Efforts — The  Ancient 
Story  of  the  Danish  Prince — Differences  between  It  and  the 
Drama — The  Incidents  too  few  for  a  Five-Act  Play — Hence  the 
Introduction  of  the  Ghost  and  of  Additional  Characters — A  New 
Difficulty — The  Necessity  of  postponing  Hamlet's  Revenge 
until  the  End  of  the  Play — Hence  the  Necessity  of  Vacillation 
in  his  Actions — Hence  a  Gradual  Change  in  Shakespeare's  Con- 
ception of  the  Character — The  Evolution  beyond  Shakespeare's 
Power  to  control  . 37 

CHAPTEE    Y. 

THE    TYPE    OF    HAMLET'S    CHARACTER. 

Hamlet  admired  in  spite  of  his  Apparent  Defects — Two  Types  of 
Human  Perfection — The  Failure  to  recogni/e  Hamlet's  True 
Type — Lady  Macbeth  his  Counterpart — Hamlet,  Macbeth,  and 
Lear  a  Trilogy — Stratagem  used  when  Strength  fails — Hamlet's 
Love  of  Indirect  Means — Its  Recognition  by  Dr.  Maudsley  and 
Schlegel — Hamlet's  Fondness  for  Words  rather  than  Deeds — 
Quotations  from  Rohrbach,  Hazlitt,  and  Bacon— Hamlet's  Fear 
of  Death — His  Soliloquy — Recognition  of  his  State  of  Mind  by 
Mr.  Jones  Very — This  Timidity  Unnatural  in  a  Prince — Ham- 


CONTENTS.  9 

PAGE 

let's  Weariness  of  the  Burdens  of  Life — The  Class  of  Minds 
from  which  such  Feelings  would  be  expected     .         .         .         .46 

CHAPTER    VI. 

HAMLET'S  NATURE  ESSENTIALLY  FEMININE. 
Hamlet's  Impulsiveness — His  Love  for  Mockery — His  Disgust 
with  Revelry — His  Pretty  Oaths — His  Fear  of  breaking  into 
Tears — His  Admiration  for  Manly  Virtues  and  Detestation  of 
Feminine  Weaknesses — His  Eulogy  of  Man — His  Panegyrics  of 
his  Father — His  Treatment  of  his  Mother  and  Ophelia — Com- 
parison with  the  Interviews  between  Viola  and  Olivia  and  be- 
tween Rosalind  and  Phebe — May  not  Shakespeare  have  at  last  . 
entertained  the  Thought  that  Hamlet  might  be  a  Woman  ? — 
This  was  not  his  Original  Conception  of  the  Character — Shake- 
speare may  never  have  fully  yielded  to  the  Fancy,  but  certainly 
dallied  with  it — The  Rewording  of  the  Drama  with  this  Idea  in 
view — Shakespeare's  Fondness  for  allowing  his  Heroines  to 
masquerade  in  Male  Attire — King  Lear — In  a  Comedy  this 
Masquerade  is  but  Temporary,  but  in  a  Tragedy  must  be  car- 
ried out  to  the  End  .........  54 

CHAPTER    VII. 

HAMLET?S  LOVE  FOR  HORATIO  AND  JEALOUSY  OF  OPHELIA- 
Hamlet  and  Horatio  constantly  together — Hamlet  confides  in  him 
alone — The  Letter  to  Horatio — The  Grave-yard  Scene — Dis- 
prized  Love — His  Eulogy  of  Horatio — The  Death  Scene — Ho- 
ratio unscourged  by  Hamlet's  Tongue — Contrast  between  his 
Treatment  of  Horatio  and  Ophelia — The  Letter  to  Ophelia — 
The  Scene  at  the  Grave — His  Rebuke  by  the  Actor  j  by  For- 
tinbras :  by  Laertes — His  Feeling  of  Humiliation  in  the  Pres- 
ence of  Horatio — Jealousy  of  Ophelia  —  Horatio's  Intimacy 
with  her — The  Play  Scene — His  Caution  to  her  to  be  less  free 
of  her  Presence — His  Warning  to  Polonius  .  .  .  .62 

CHAPTER    VIII. 

ADDITIONAL    FEMININE    TRAITS. 

Hamlet's  Raillery  at  Marriage — His  Censure  of  his  Mother — His 
Bitterness   is   exhibited  rather  towards  her  than  towards  the 


10  CONTENTS. 


PAGE 


King — Hunter's  Comment — No  Mistake  in  Shakespeare — Ham- 
let's Attempts  to  deceive  Himself — His  Quickness  of  Apprecia- 
tion of  Difference  of  Sex — His  Bodily  Characteristics — Small, 
Delicate,  yet  Plump — His  Daintiness — His  Sensitiveness  to  the 
Weather  and  to  Odors — Hamlet  is  Hysterical — Irving's  Notice 
of  this  Fact — Hamlet  faints—Julia  and  Rosalind — Hamlet's 
Physical  Strength — Overcome  by  Laertes — His  Skill  in  Fencing  72 

CHAPTEK    IX. 

HAMLET'S  AGE  AND  BIRTH — THE  TERMS  USED  IN  ADDRESS- 
ING HIM. 

Hamlet's  Youthful  Beauty — The  General  Admiration  for  Him — 
Apparent  Incompatibility  between  his  Age  and  Appearance — 
Explanation— The  Date  of  his  Birth— The  Mortal  Combat  be- 
tween King  Hamlet  and  Fortinbras — Presumption  that  the 
King  was  Wounded — Anxiety  for  a  Son — No  Daughter  could 
succeed  to  the  Throne — Hamlet  the  only  Child — Possibility  of 
an  Attempt  to  pass  off  a  Daughter  for  a  Son — No  Retreat — The 
Ghost  never  calls  Hamlet  "  Son" — The  Word  frequently  used 
in  "Fratricide  Punished" — The  Usurper  calls  him  Son — Ham- 
let shrinks  from  the  Title— He  turns  the  Tables— Use  of  the 
Term  "  Son"  by  Hamlet  and  the  Queen — Other  Objections  to  the 
Theory — Hamlet's  Beardless  Face 80 

CHAPTEE    X. 

HAMLET'S    HINTS  or    FEMININITY — COMPARISON    BETWEEN 

DIFFERENT    EDITIONS. 

Hints — Some  Vicious  Mole  of  Nature — More  Things  in  Heaven 
and  Earth — Actions  that  a  Man  might  play — The  Signature 
of  his  Letter  to  Ophelia — A  Gaingiving  that  would  perhaps 
trouble  a  Woman — His  Last  Words — "The  Rest  is  Silence" — 
Comparison  between  First  and  Second  Quartos — Comparison  of 
these  with  "  Fratricide  Punished" — Passages  not  found  in  the 
Earlier  Form  of  the  Play— Change  of  the  Length  of  Wedded 
Life  of  the  Player  King  and  Queen — Passages  in  the  First 
Quarto  stricken  out  of  the  Second — The  Necessity  of  Hamlet's 
Death — Conclusion 89 


THE   MYSTERY   OF   HAMLET. 


CHAPTER    I. 

THE    EXISTENCE   OF   A   MYSTERY. 

As  among  the  myriads  who.  since  the  days  of  Homer, 
have  attempted  to  crystallize  in  human  words  the  ever- 
varying  tales  of  human  life  and  love,  one  stands  out  pre- 
eminent and  incomparable,  so  among  his  works  there  rises 
one,  the  undisputed  crown  of  all,  with  an  irresistible  fasci- 
nation, attracting  even  those  to  whom  the  language  in 
which  it  was  written  is  an  unknown  tongue. 

"With  an  incredible  plot,  and  a  hero  who,  weak  and 
vacillating,  continually  does  those  things  which  he  ought 
not  to  do  and  leaves  undone  those  things  which  he  ought 
to  have  done,  there  is  yet  revealed  a  depth  of  human  feel- 
ing, and  a  knowledge  of  the  inmost  springs  that  move  the 
puppets  whom  we  call  mankind,  before  which  humanity 
bows. 

With  other  writers,  their  characters  are  frequently  but 
embodied  qualities,  moved  by  one  emotion.  The  heroine 
is  the  embodiment  of  love,  and  lives  but  to  love,  alone. 
The  good  are  supernaturally  good,  with  scarcely  one  con- 

11 


12  THE   MYSTERY  OF  HAMLET. 

(/Fasting  vice,  and  tlie  villains  are  creatures  of  crime  whom 
no  remorse  can  reach.  One  character  is  the  embodiment 
of  avarice  ;  another,  of  ambition  ;  a  third,  of  revenge  ;  and 
each  stalks  through  his  mimic  life  inspired  by  but  a  single 
motive.  In  Shakespeare's  works  alone  do  we  see  that 
tangled  web  of  which  human  lives  are  composed :  weak- 

•  -lies*  and  strpiy^tlj  -dmlbined  ;  light  and  shade  ;  a  thousand 

conflicting' ahofc:i?\'  eb  'la'  inextricable  confusion,  driving  their 

',   ;  tkftkli!  to  <:W(>;Fro;;  jind  ainong  them  all  we  see  the  man.  a 

' '  creature  of  as  'niaiked  individuality,  as  complete  in  his  hu- 

/  inanity,  as  the  fellow-beings  among  whom  we  move.  Other 
authors  reveal  the  man  by  his  actions,  but  Shakespeare 

v  shows  the  man  in  spite  of  his  actions  ;  and  in  the  character 
of  Hamlet  we  have  a  bundle  of  contradictions,  as  yet  inex- 
plicable and  mysterious.  No  man  has  fathomed  the  depths 
which  could  produce  a  Hamlet.  Weak  and  vacillating  as 
he  is,  there  is  yet  some  quality  which  forbids  that  any 
should  despise  or  condemn  him.  Macbeth,  with  far  less 
of  irresolution,  is  contemptuously  dismissed  as  weak,  yet 
Hamlet,  constantly  driven  by  the  circumstances  that  sur- 
rounded him,  and  never  able  to  conquer  them  even  to  the 
moment  when  they  bring  about  his  revenge  and  simulta- 
neous death,  commands  a  universal  sympathy  and  admira- 
tion. Why  should  Hamlet  have  faltered  ? — why  feigned 
madness? — why  needlessly  tortured  the  young  girl  who 
loved  him,  and  driven  her  from  him  with  coarse  and  cruel 
words  ?  Why,  in  any  and  all  his  actions,  should  they  have 

been  as  they  were?     Who  knows? 

One  thing  only  is  sure,  that  the  character  of  Hamlet  re- 
veals a  depth  of  humanity  which  all  earnest  students  infal- 


libly recognize. 


Like  a  distant  landscape  seen  through  ; 


THE  EXISTENCE   OF  A    MYSTERY.  13 

cloud  of  smoky,  heated  air,  each  particular  point  when 
steadily  looked  at  seems  to  waver  and  flicker  and  be  un- 
certain, and  yet  through  this  changing  uncertainty  as  to 
details  can  be  seen  the  outlines  of  a  noble  view. 

What  is  it  that  so  distinguishes  Hamlet  from  all  other 
creations  of  the  poet?  That  some  mystery  lurks  in  the 
subtle  fascination  is  undeniable.  Of  the  hundreds  who 
have  discussed  the  subject,  scarcely  one  has  failed  to  note 
it.  The  following  quotations  will  show  how  universal  is 
this  feeling : 

"  Hamlet  himself  has  caused  more  of  perplexity  and 
discussion  than  any  other  character  in  the  whole  range  of 
art.  The  charm  of  his  mind  and  person  amounts  to  an 
almost  universal  fascination  ;  and  he  has  been  well  de- 
scribed as  a  t  concentration  of  all  the  interests  that  belong 
to  humanity.'  I  have  learned  by  experience  that  one 
seems  to  understand  him  better  after  a  little  study  than 
after  a  great  deal ;  and  that  the  less  one  sees  into  him  the 
more  apt  one  is  to  think  he  sees  through  him  ;  in  which 
respect  he  is  indeed  like  nature  herself.  One  man  con- 
siders Hamlet  great,  but  wicked  ;  another  good,  but  weak  ; 
a  third,  that  he  lacks  courage,  and  dare  not  act;  a  fourth, 
that  he  has  too  much  intellect  for  his  will,  and  so  reflects 
away  the  time  of  action  ;  some  conclude  his  madness  half 
genuine ;  others,  that  it  is  wholly  feigned.  Doubtless 
there  are  facts  in  the  delineation  which,  considered  by 
themselves,  would  sustain  any  one  of  these  views ;  but 
none  of  them  seem  reconcilable  with  all  the  facts  taken 
together.  Yet,  notwithstanding  this  diversity  of  opinions, 
all  agree  in  thinking  of  Hamlet  as  an  actual  person.  It  is 
easy  to  invest  with  plausibility  almost  any  theory  respect- 


14  THE  MYSTERY  OF  HAMLET. 

ing  him,  but  very  hard  to  make  any  theory  comprehend  the 
whole  subject;  and  while  all  are  impressed  with  the  truth 
of  the  character,  no  one  is  satisfied  with  another's  explana- 
tion of  it.  The  question  is,  why  such  unanimity  as  to  his 
being  a  man,  and  at  the  same  time  such  diversity  as  to 
what  sort  of  man  he  is?  .  .  .  After  all,  it  must  be  con- 
fessed that  there  is  a  mystery  about  Hamlet  which  baffles 
the  utmost  eiforts  of  criticism." — Hudson. 

"  The  mystery,  the  baffling,  vital  obscurity  of  the  play, 
and  in  particular  of  the  character  of  its  chief  person,  make 
it  evident  that  Shakespeare  had  left  far  behind  him  that 
early  stage  of  development  when  an  artist  obtrudes  his 
intentions,  or,  distrusting  his  own  ability  to  keep  sight  of 
one  uniform  design,  deliberately  and  with  effort  holds  that 
design  persistently  before  him.  .  .  .  Hamlet  might  have 
been  so  easily  manufactured  into  an  enigma,  or  a  puzzle  ; 
and  then  the  puzzle,  if  sufficient  pains  were  bestowed, 
could  be  completely  taken  to  pieces  and  explained.  But 
Shakespeare  created  it  a  mystery,  and  therefore  it  is  for- 
ever suggestive ;  forever  suggestive,  and  never  wholly 
explicable." — Prof.  Doicden. 

ic  Polonius,  after  a  remarkable  display  of  Hamlet's  '  antic 
disposition,'  says :  '  though  this  be  madness,  yet  there 
is  method  in't.'  Is  it  possible  for  us  to  discern  this 
<  method'  ?  Can  we  discover  ^any  deeper  meaning  lying  be- 
neath what  is  outwardly  so  '  odd'  and  '  strange'  ?" — Tlw$. 
Tyler. 

"  This  enigmatical  work  resembles  those  irrational  equa- 
tions, in  which  a  fraction  of  unknown  magnitude  always 
remains,  that  will  in  no  manner  admit  of  solution." — A. 
W.  SchlegeL 


THE  EXISTENCE   OF  A    MYSTERY.  15 

"There  is  no  drama,  as  all  the  world  knows,  upon  which 
so  much  has  been  written  as  Shakespeare's  Hamlet.  ...  A 
critical  tower  of  Babel  of  amazing  height  and  breadth  has 
been  reared,  and  for  the  same  purpose  as  in  the  Scripture  : 
to  scale  celestial  heights,  and,  as  people  see,  with  the  same 
result.  The  celestial  heights  remain  unsealed." — Klein. 

if  How  was  it  possible  that  a  finely-cultured  man,  the 
same  man  whose  incomparable  advantages  we  have  just- 
been  considering,  an  honored  prince,  the  offspring  of  an 
heroic  king,  a  member  of  the  regal  court,  could  take  upon 
himself  the  shame  of  a  disordered  brain  ?  Here  there 
certainly  lies  before  us  a  riddle  which  we  strive  in  vain 
fully  to  solve,  the  secret  of  a  soul  into  whose  abyss  only 
the  greatest  of  poets  was  able  to  look." — Hermann 
Freilierr  von  Friesen. 

"  In  the  endeavor  to  solve  the  mystery  of  Hamlet,  the 
human  mind,  not  only  in  its  clear  radiance  but  in  the  sad 
twilight  of  its  eclipse,  has  been  subjected  to  the  most  search- 
ing analysis.  This  ideal  character,,  Hamlet,  has  been  as- 
sumed to  be  very  nature,  and  if  we  fail  to  reach  a  solution 
of  the  problem  which  it  presents,  the  error  lies  in  us  and 
in  our  analysis  ;  not  in  SHAKESPEARE." — Furness. 

The  solution  which  Groethe  proposed  for  this  univer- 
sally admitted  mystery  has  been  the  one  usually  accepted  : 

u  To  me  it  is  clear  that  Shakespeare  sought  to  depict  a 
great  deed  laid  upon  a  soul  unequal  to  the  performance  of 
it.  In  this  view  I  find  the  piece  composed  throughout. 
Here  is  an  oak-tree  planted  in  a  costly  vase  which  should 
have  received  into  its  bosom  only  lovely  flowers.  The 
roots  spread  out,  the  vase  is  shivered  to  pieces.  A  beau- 
tiful, pure,  noble,  and  most  moral  nature,  without  the 


16  THE  MYSTERY  OF  HAMLET. 

strength  of  nerve  which  makes  the  hero,  sinks  beneath  a 
burden  which  it  can  neither  bear  nor  throw  off;  every 
duty  is  holy  to  him, — this  too  hard.  The  impossible  is 
required  of  him, — not  the  impossible  in  itself,  but  the  im- 
possible to  him." 

Yet  we  find  it  stated  that  in  his  later  years  Goethe  did 
not  rest  satisfied  with  his  explanation.  "  After  all  is  said," 
he  remarked  in  relation  to  Hamlet,  "  that  weighs  upon 
one's  soul  as  a  gloomy  problem." 

The  mystery  which  enshrouds  the  character  may  be 
suggested  in  a  query. 

Why  is  it  that  with  so  much  that  seems  unaccountable 
and  strange  in  the  doings  of  Hamlet,  so  much  that  is  at 
variance  with  all  that  would  naturally  be  expected  from  a 
man,  humanity  still  recognizes  in  him  a  fellow-being,  in- 
tensely human  in  all  his  thoughts  and  ways  ? 

That  Hamlet  was  placed  in  extraordinary  circumstances, 
surroundings  so  far  from  those  with  which  we  are  ac- 
quainted that  even  the  visit  of  a  spirit  from  the  grave 
must  be  accepted  as  an  actuality,  may  account  for  many 
strange  effects,  but  not  for  all  the  vacillation  and  weak- 
ness that  are  exhibited  by  him. 

Taking  for  granted  the  existence  of  such  a  mystery, 
the  question  remains  as  to  whether  a  careful  examination 
of  the  drama  can  enable  us  to  solve  it. 


CHAPTER    IT. 

THE   HISTORY   OF   THE   STORY. 

THE  play  as  we  now  have  it  is  substantially  the  same  as  it 
appears  in  what  is  known  as  the  u  Second  Quarto,"  which 
was  printed  in  the  year  1G04  with  the  following  title-page:/ 

THE 
TRAGICALL   HISTORIE   OF 

HAMLET 

PRINCE    OF  DENMARKE 
BY   WILLIAM   SHAKESPEARE 

NEWLY    IMPRINTED   AND    ENLARGED   TO   ALMOST  AS    MUCH 

AGAINE    AS    IT   WAS,    ACCORDING   TO   THE   TRUE   AND    PERFECT 

COPPIE. 

AT   LONDON, 
PRINTED' BY  I.  R.  FOR  N.  L.,  AND  ARE  TO  BE  SOLD  AT  HIS 

SHOPPE   VNDER    SAINT   DUNSTONS    CHURCH    IN 
FLEETSTREET.       1604. 

Until  1823  this  was  the  oldest  edition  known ;  but  in 
that  year  Sir  Henry  Bunbury  found  in  a  closet  at  Barton, 
in  a  small  quarto,  bound  up  with  a  number  of  other  plays, 
2  17 


18  THE  MYSTERY  OF  HAMLET. 

an  edition  of"  Hamlet"  bearing  the  date  1603,  which  differs 
widely  from  that  of  1604,  not  only  in  words  and  phrases, 
but  even  in  the  names  of  some  of  the  characters  and  in  the 
order  of  some  of  the  scenes,  and  is  but  little  more  than 
half  as  long  as  the  later  edition.  It  not  only  omits  much 
that  is  found  in  our  present  drama,  but  contains  some 
phrases,  and  one  full  scene,  omitted  in  the  later  edition. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  these  differences  repre- 
sent a  real  difference  in  the  dramas;  that  is  to  say,  our 
"  Hamlet"  of  to-day  differs  in  many  respects  from  "  Hamlet" 
as  originally  written  by  Shakespeare.  That  he  re- wrote  and 
revised  the  play  at  least  once  is  almost  certain ;  that  he 
may  have  done  so  several  times  seems  probable. 

There  is  a  period  in  the  development  of  nations  when 
literary  effort  is  turned  toward  the  presentation  of  old 
tales  in  a  new  form,  rather  than  toward  the  creation  of 
new  themes.  The  old  stories  are  repeated  and  re-repeated 
in  different  forms,  and  the  popular  taste  is  more  surely 
pleased  by  a  variation  of  a  well-known  legend  than  by  a 
new  creation.  The  history  of  Sanscrit  literature  is  a  his- 
tory of  almost  infinite  .variations  of  a  few  ancient  myths  ; 
and  even  Homer  did  not  disdain  to  arrange  and  reword 
and  combine  the  tales  which  had  been  sung  by  generations 
of  bards  before  him.  In  Shakespeare's  time  dramatic  lit- 
erature was  in  this  stage  of  development.  We  know  of 
many  of  Shakespeare's  plays  that  they  are  but  repetitions 
of  a  twice-told  tale  :  earlier  tales  and  dramas  were  re-writ- 
ten ;  most  of  the  characters  remained  the  same ;  much  of 
the  old  plot  was  retained ;  but  the  additions  and  changes 
made  by  Shakespeare  were  enough  to.  constitute  the  differ- 
ence between  death  and  life. 


THE  HISTORY  OF  THE  STORY.  19 

Others  had  carved  statues  with  a  skilful  hand,  resem- 
bling life,  but  cold  and  dead.  Shakespeare  touched  them 
with  his  magic  hand,  and  they  sprang  into  life,  more  than 
mortal.  Creatures  of  flesh  and  blood  have  struggled 
through  their  lives  and  gone  down  to  forgetful  ness,  their 
children  and  their  children's  children  after  them  have 
lived  and  loved  and  striven  and  hoped  and  despaired. 
Some  have  strutted  with  the  pride  of  fancied  success,  and 
some  have  bowed  their  heads  in  misery  and  despair  and 
folded  their  arms  above  broken  hearts  :  but  one  event  hath 
happened  to  them  all :  as  the  one  died,  so  died  the  other, 
and  there  is  no  remembrance  of  them  upon  the  earth. 
Their  love  and  their  hatred  and  their  envy  is  now  perished, 
neither  have  they  any  more  a  portion  forever  in  anything 
that  is  done  under  the  sun  ;  but  the  creations  of  our  im- 
mortal poet  bloom  with  an  eternal  .youth,  and  live  on  un- 
changeable amidst  a  changing  world. 

So,  in  the  case  of  the  drama  of  which  Hamlet  is  the 
centre,  Shakespeare  took  the  puppets  of  a  former  creation, 
and  breathed  into  them  the  breath  of  life,  and  they  became 
living  souls. 

Hamlet  and  his  unhappy  father,  the  king  who  murdered 
his  brother,  and  the  queen  who  married  the  murderer,  had 
had  an  existence  for  many  centuries.  In  the  twelfth  cen- 
tury, Saxo  Grammaticus,  a  celebrated  Danish  historian,  in- 
cluded in  his  "  Danish  History"  the  earliest  form  of  the 
history  of  Hamlet  that  has  reached  us,  repeating  this,  with 
many  other  stories  of  early  days,  from  the  information  that 
he  had  acquired  from  old  tales,  songs,  and  traditions.  About 
1571,  Francis  de  Belleforest  published  in  a  French  collec- 
tion of  "  Tragical  Histories,"  among  many  other  stories, 


20  THE  MYSTERY  OF  HAMLET. 

some  original  and  some  borrowed,  the  history  of  Hamlet, 
having  derived  the  plot  of  his  story  from  Saxo  Grammati- 
cus  or  from  some  intermediate  writer ;  and  there  is  little 
doubt  that  Belleforest's  story,  either  directly  or  through 
some  translation  or  adaptation,  suggested  to  Shakespeare 
the  foundation  of  his  immortal  masterpiece. 

Although  we  have  no  sure  record  of  the  existence  of 
our  Shakespearian  Hamlet  before  1603.  there  is  undoubted 
evidence  that  a  drama  of  that  name  was  played  as  early  as 
1589.  The  first  allusion  to  it  that  is  found  was  made  by 
Nash,  who,  referring  to  the  dramatists  of  his  time,  wrote, — 

i(  It  is  a  common  practice  now  a  daies  amongst  a  sort  of 
shifting  companions,  that  runne  through  every  arte  and 
thrive  by  none  to  leave  the  trade  of  Noverint  whereto 
they  were  borne,  and  busie  themselves  with  the  indevours 
of  art,  that  could  scarcelie  latinize  their  necke-verse  if 
they  should  have  neede  ;  yet  English  Seneca  read  by  can- 
dle-light yeeldes  nianie  good  sentences,  as  Bloidd  is  a  beg- 
ger^  and  so  foorth :  and  if  you  intreate  him  faire  in  a 
frostie  morning,  he  will  aifoord  you  whole  Hamlets — I 
should  say  Handfulls  of  tragical  speaches." 

From  an  account-book  of  Philip  Henslowe,  a  theatrical 
proprietor  or  lessee,  it  appears  that  "  Hamlet"  was  played 
June  9,  1594,  and  that  it  was  not  then  new. 

In  1596  a  certain  Dr.  Lodge  published  a  pamphlet,  in 
which  the  doctor,  in  discussing  "  Hate- Virtue"  or  "  Sorrow 
for  another  man's  good  Success,"  says  that  it  is  "a  foule 
lubber,  and  looks  as  pale  as  the  visard  of  ye  ghost,  which 
cried  so  miserally  at  ye  Cheater,  like  an  oisterwife,  '  Ham- 
let reuenge.' :} 

A  note  written  by  Dr.  Gabriel  Harvey  in  an  edition  of 


THE  HISTORY  OF   THE  STORY.  21 

Chaucer  which  he  owned,  which  note  there  is  reason  to 
believe  was  written  in  1598,  is  as  follows :  "  The  younger 
sort  take  much  delight  in  Shakespeare's  Venus  and  Adonis, 
but  his  Lucrece  and  his  tragedy  of  Hamlet  Prince  of  Dcn- 
marJce  have  it  in  them  to  please  the  wiser  sort." 

In  Dekker's  "  Satiro-mastix"  of  1G02  the  following 
phrase  occurs :  "  My  name's  Hamlet  reuenge :  thou  hast 
been  at  Parris  garden,  hast  not?" 

These  I  facts  show  that  during  the  period  between  1589 
and  1603  there  existed  a  play  having  the  story  of  Hamlet 
as  its  foundation,  and  in  which  there  appeared  a  ghost  ap- 
pealing for  revenge.  In  the  earlier  histories  of  Hamlet 
the  father  of  the  prince  was  openly  put  to  death  by  his 
brother.  It  is  only  in  the  later  drama,  of  which  we  have 
no  account  until  the  year  in  which  we  find  a  record  that 
Shakespeare  had  become  a  sharer  in  the  Blackfriars  The- 
atre, that  the  murder  becomes  a  secret  crime,  undiscover- 
able  except  by  the  aid  of  the  unquiet  spirit  of  the  victim. 
The  change  was  bold,  and  lies  at  the  foundation  of  the 
drama.  It  was  a  change  characteristic  of  the  genius  of 
Shakespeare,  and  there  seems  reason  for  believing  that  it 
was  he,  and  he  alone,  who  planned  it. 

Four  years  before,  in  1585,  a  few  months  before  he  was 
twenty-one  years  of  age,  twin  children  were  born  in  his 
country  home,  to  whom  he  gave  the  names  of  Hamnet  and 
Judith.  The  boy,  Shakespeare's  first  son,  was  named  after 
the  hero  of  the  old  tale,  for  "Hamnet"  is  but  a  verbal 
variation  of  "  Hamlet." 

How  long  before  may  the  young  husband,  in  admiration 
of  the  filial  affection  and  steadfast  resolution  of  the  prince 
who  took  upon  himself  the  degradation  of  pretended  idiocy 


22  THE   MYSTERY  OF  HAMLET. 

(for  this  and  not  raving  insanity  was  the  disguise  assumed 
by  the  hero  of  the  ancient  story)  and  steadily  awaited  the 
time  when  it  should  become  possible  for  him  to  avenge 
the  open  murder  of  his  father  and  the  calumny  heaped 
upon  him  by  his  murderer,  have  determined  that  his  first- 
born son  should  bear  the  name  ?  Even  for  his  daughter 
there  was  found  a  name  having  a  double  connection  with 
the  story  of  the  Danish  prince;  for  Judith,  too,  took  life 
and  honor  in  her  hand,  in  order  by  a  desperate  effort  of 
weakness  against  enthroned  strength  to  accomplish  a 
mighty  and  sanctified  purpose  ;  and  in  her  name  of  Judith 
there  may  also  exist  a  play  upon  the  name  of  Jutie-land. 

When  his  twins  were  about  a  year  old,  the  youthful 
father,  with  but  scanty  means,  removed  to  London  to  bet- 
ter his  fortune.  Here  we  have  no  record  of  him  until 
three  years  later,  when  his  name  appears  as  a  sharer  in  the 
Blackfriars  Theatre. 

How  did  this  penniless  boy  attain  to  such  prosperity 
within  three  years? 

Not  by  his  ability  as  an  actor,  for  our  record  of  his  im- 
personations names  only  two  parts  in  which  he  ever  ap- 
peared (and  one  of  these,  by  the  way,  was  that  of  the 
ghost  in  "  Hamlet"). 

It  seems  impossible  that  this  unknown,  impoverished 
country  youth  should  have  been  able  to  leap  at  a  bound 
into  the  partial  proprietorship  of  the  theatre  with  which 
his  name  was  connected,  in  any  other  way  than  by  the  au- 
thorship of  some  one  or  more  plays  of  great  success, — 
plays  winning  for  their  author  both  money  and  renown. 

When  Shakespeare  first  tried  his  powers  as  a  dramatist, 
what  story  would  more  naturally  occur  to  the  father, 


THE  HISTORY  OF   THE  STORY.  23 

struggling  for  maintenance  for  his  son,  as  the  ground- work 

Oo  o  r  •      <3 

for  his  drama,  than  the  story  which  in  his  younger  days 
had  so  impressed  him  as  to  induce  him  to  bestow  upon  his 
son  the  name  of  its  hero  ?  If  Hamlet  were  his  first  play, 
how  natural  would  it  be  that,  in  his  anxiety  that  it  should 
be  seen  at  its  best,  he  himself  should  take  the  role  of  the 
unquiet  spirit  whose  introduction  forms  the  foundation  for 
all  the  important  variations  from  the  formerly  well  known 
story,  and  upon  the  success  of  whose  impression  upon  the 
audience  depended  the  success  of  his  tragedy ! 

This  much  appears  certain, — that  within  three  years 
after  Shakespeare's  arrival  in  London  a  play  bearing  the 
name  of  "  Hamlet"  had  been  recently  produced,  and  had 
been  successful,  that  in  this  play  a  ghost  appeared  crying, 
"  Hamlet,  revenge"  (and  this  phrase  seems  to  have  so  fixed 
itself  upon  the  public  attention  that  in  the  only  two  refer- 
ences that  we  have  to  this  early  play,  in  which  any  portion 
of  it  appears,  these  words,  and  these  alone,  are  quoted  in 
both  cases),  and  that  the  author  had  but  recently  left  "the 
trade  of  Noverint"  to  "  busie"  himself  with  the  u  indeauors 
of  art."  Some  youthful  aspirant,  previously  unknown  to 
fame,  had  therefore  bounded  into  a  sudden  renown,  by  the 
authorship  of  the  play. 

At  just  this  time,  Shakespeare  emerges  from  obscurity, 
as,  in  some  way,  the  possessor  of  sufficient  money  or  credit 
to  purchase  an  interest  in  the  theatre,  and  soon  afterwards 
we  find  frequent  notices  of  him,  with  laudations  of  his 
powers  as  a  dramatist. 

In  Stratford  there  lived  a  certain  Thomas  Green,  who 
was  an  attorney,  and  was  so  related  to  the  Shakespeare 
family  that  not  only  does  his  son  call  our  immortal  poet 


24  THE  MYSTERY  OF  HAMLET. 

his  "  cozen  Shakespeare,"  but  the  burial  of  the  father  is 
recorded  in  the  parish  register  as  that  of  "  Thomas  Green, 
•  alias  Shakespeare."  In  the  lack  of  facts  as  to  Shake- 
speare's early  life,  is  not  the  assumption  that  he  may  have 
studied  for  a  time  in  the  office  of  this  relative  a  reasonable 
one,  together  with  its  natural  consequence,  that  when  he 
first  went  to  London  it  would  be  as  a  "  Noverint"  or  law- 
yer's clerk  that  he  would  first  endeavor  to  make  his  way  ? 
His  works  are  full  of  legal  allusions,  and  in  this  very  play 
of  Hamlet  his  discourse  with  Horatio  in  the  church-yard 
shows  a  wonderful  knowledge  of  legal  phrases,  and  the 
reasoning  of  the  first  grave-digger  with  his  companion  is 
but  a  travesty  of  a  legal  decision  given  many  years  before, 
of  which  no  one  outside  of  an  attorney's  office  would 
have  been  likely  to  know,  except  as  it  might  have  been 
popularly  discussed  immediately  after  it  was  given,  and  so 
have  come  to  the  ears  of  even  a  grave-digger,  but  to  be 
soon  forgotten.  There  is,  therefore,  abundant  reason  for 
thinking  that  the  term  "Noverint"  may  have  been  applied 
to  Shakespeare,  and  Nash's  reference  to  the  "shifting 
companions  that  run  through  every  arte"  is  very  similar  to 
the  phrase  u  an  absolute  Johannes  factotum"  applied  to  the 
poet  by  Robert  Green  in  an  attack  made  a  few  years  later. 

Who  was  the  formerly  unknown  lawyer's  clerk  who  in  or 
just  prior  to  the  year  1589  wrote  the  drama  of  "  Hamlet"  ? 

How  did  Shakespeare,  in  1589,  within  three  years  after 
coming  to  London  unknown  and  in  poverty,  attain  such 
prosperity  as  to  enable  him  to  purchase  a  share  in  the 
theatre  ? 

Does  not  one  query  answer  the  other,  and  is  it  possible 
to  answer  either  without  reference  to  the  other  ? 


CHAPTER    III. 

DIFFERENT    VERSIONS   OF   THE   STORY. 

ASSUMING  that  the  "  Hamlet"  of  1589  was  the  work 
of  Shakespeare,  the  question  remains  whether  it  was  sub- ' 
stantially  the  same  drama  that  we  now  have.  We  have 
already  spoken  of  the  differences  between  the  edition  of 
the  play  which  was  published  in  1603  and  that  of  1604. 
These  differences  seem  altogether  too  radical  to  be  ex- 
plained by  the  theory  that  the  earlier  publication  was  a 
piratical  version,  taken  down  in  short-hand  or  partly  written 
out  from  memory  from  a  theatrical  representation  of  the 
tragedy  in  its  present  form.  There  is  strong  reason  for 
believing  the  edition  of  1603  to  have  been  printed  without 
authority,  from  an  imperfect  copy,  and  to  have  been 
maimed  and  distorted  in  many  ways ;  yet  no  errors  of  a 
hasty  copyist,  or  of  an  imperfect  memory,  can  account  for 
many  of  the  differences  between  the  two  editions.  No 
mere  carelessness  could  turn  the  names  of  Polonius  and 
Reynaldo  into  Corambis  and  Montano  ;  no  dull  ear  of  an 
unappreciative  listener  could  turn  the  stilted  lines  of  the 
mimic  king,  in  the  play-scene  as  we  now  have  it,  into  the" 
liquid  music  of  the  early  quarto. 

When  Shakespeare  first  wrote  this  play  within  a  play, 
he  filled  it  with  beauty  and  with  Shakespearian  character- 
istics. Witness  the  follqwing  lines  : 

25 


26  THE  MYSTERY  OF  HAMLET. 

il  Full  fortie  yeares  are  past,  their  date  is  gone, 
Since  happy  time  ioyn'd  both  our  hearts  as  one  : 
And  now  the  blood  that  fill'd  my  youthfull  veines 
Kunnes  weakely  in  their  pipes,  and  all  the  straines 
Of  musicke,  which  whilome  pleasde  mine  eare, 
Is  now  a  burthen  that  Age  cannot  beare : 
And  therefore  sweete  Nature  must  pay  his  due, 
To  heauen  must  I,  and  leaue  the  earth  with  you." 

These  lines  are  probably-  somewhat  corrupted,  but  no 
meaner  hand  than  Shakespeare's  wrote  the  verses  from 
which  they  were  copied. 

Note  the  beauty  of  the  third,  fourth,  and  fifth  lines, 
and  notice,  too,  how  our  "  absolute  Johannes  Factotum," 
to  whom  all  human  knowledge  seems  to  be  but  a  matter  of 
instinct,  in  them  prophesies  the  truth  as  to  the  circulation 
of  the  blood  in  the  veins  and  "  pipes,"  a  truth  which  Har- 
vey probably  did  not  even  suspect  until  at  least  thirteen 
years  later,  and  did  not  publicly  declare  and  demonstrate 
until  a  quarter  of  a  century  after  the  publication  of  this 
quarto. 

When  re-writing  the  tragedy,  our  poet  felt  the  necessity 
of  more  distinctly  separating  this  mimic  play  from  the 
body  of  the  drama,  and,  by  intensifying  the  feeling  that  it 
was  a  play,  of  so  intensifying  the  feeling  that  the  sur- 
roundings were  those  of  real  life.  So  he  carefully  and  un- 
sparingly pruned  out  the  beauty  of  the  lines  and  for  them 
substituted  the  following  jog-trot : 

"Full  thirty  times  hath  Phoebus'  cart  gone  round 
Neptune's  salt  wash  and  Tell  us'  orbed  ground, 
And  thirty  dozen  moons  with  borrow'd  sheen 
About  the  world  have  times  twelve  thirties  been, 


DIFFERENT   VERSIONS  OF   THE  STORY.      27 

Since  love  our  hearts  and  Hymen  did  our  hands 
Unite  commutual  in  most  sacred  hands. 

-*  •&  -X-  *  *  •& 

Faith,  I  must  leave  thee,  love,  and  shortly  too ; 
My  operant  powers  their  functions  leave  to  do  ; 
And  thou  shalt  live  in  this  fair  world  hehind, 
Honor 7d,  beloved." 

Is  it  possible  that  a.ny  "  actor  who  put  down  from 
memory  a  sketch  of  the  original  play  as  it  was  acted,  and 
who  wrote  very  illegibly,"  or  any  "  bad  poet,  most  prob- 
ably a  bookseller's  hack,"  who,  "  without  any  personal  in- 
tercourse with  the  writer  of  these  notes,  availed  himself 
of  them  to  make  up  his  early  copy  of  '  Hamlet,'  "  and  who, 
according  to  the  theory  that  between  them  they,  with 
scarcely  any  appreciation  for  the  poetry  or  real  beauties 
of  the  play,  mangled  our  drama  of  to-day  into  the  form 
of  the  first  edition,  could  blindly  mangle 

u  My  operant  powers  their  functions  leave  to  do" 
into 

"  And  now  the  blood  that  fill'd  my  youthfull  veines 
Kunnes  weakely  in  their  pipes,  and  all  the  straines 
Of  musicke,  which  whilome  pleasde  mine  eare, 
Is  now  a  burthen  that  Age  cannot  beare."  ? 

If  further  proof  is  needed  that  the  chief  differences 
between  the  first  and  second  quartos  are  owing  to  the  re- 
writing and  careful  elaboration  of  the  drama  by  the  hand 
of  him  who  originally  sketched  it  out  in  rough,  many 
strong  arguments  favoring  that  view  may  be  found  in  the 
"  Introductory  Note  to  Hamlet"  in  Knight's  edition  of 


28  THE  MYSTERY  OF  HAMLET. 

Shakespeare,  and  a  careful  examination  and  comparison 
of  the  two  forms  of  the  drama,  line  by  line,  will  furnish 
so  many  proofs  of  the  truth  of  this  view  that  their  com- 
bined weight  seems  irresistible. 

We  have,  then,  evidences  that  Shakespeare's  c:  Hamlet" 
was  rewritten  at  least  once.  Was  it  rewritten  or  substan- 
tially changed  more  than  once  ?  There  is  some  reason  to 
believe  that  it  was  recast  several  times,  and  that  we  have 
evidences  of  its  existence  in  at  least  four  different  forms. 

Observe  that  the  earlier  references  to  the  play  all  quote 
the  phrase  "  Hamlet,  revenge."  The  inference  is  strong 
that  these  were  the  words  with  which  the  ghost  first  ap- 
pealed to  Hamlet,  and  that  this  appeal  was  repeated  again 
and  again,  until  to  the  popular  ear  it  represented  the 
burden  of  its  mission.  Could  it  have  so  done  had  it  been  a 
fact  that  in  the  play  as  originally  presented  the  phrase  did 
not  occur  at  all  (as  in  the  case  of  our  present  version),  and 
if  even  the  word  "  revenge"  occurred  but  twice  in  one  of 
the  appearances  of  the  spirit  to  Hamlet  and  not  at  all  in 
the  other  ?  May  it  not  have  been  that,  when  thj^  history 
was  first  written,  the  mission  of  the  ghost  was  Delusively 
to  invite  to  vengeance  and  the  burden  of  its  appeal  was 
nothing  but  "  Hamlet,  revenge,"  and  that  with  the 
riper  experience  of  Shakespeare's  later  years  and  his 
deeper  insight  into  human  nature  he  infused  more  of  a 
mixture  of  human  feelings  into  the  yearnings  of  the  u  per- 
turbed spirit,"  so  as  more  surely  to  strike  responsive  chords 
in  human  hearts  ? 

In  our  present  masterpiece  it  is  not  a  desire  for  revenge 
that  is  the  main  cause  of  the  perturbation  of  the  troubled 
soul.  The  fires  in  which  he  was  confined  to  fast  had  purged 


DIFFERENT  VERSIONS  OF  THE  STORY.       29 

and  burned  away  not  only  his  foul  crimes  but  many  unsanc- 
tified  passions,  and  the  yearning  for  revenge,  merely  as 
revenge,  is  but  weak.  It  is  partly  a  longing  for  the  sym- 
pathy of  his  only  child  to  aid  him  in  the  sufferings  through 
which  he  is  passing — sufferings  greater  than  may  be  re- 
vealed to  ears  of  flesh  and  blood — that  causes  him  thus  to 
revisit  the  glimpses  of  the  moon ;  but  far  more  than  this, 
it  is  a  yearning  solicitude  for  his  wife,  for  whom  his  "  love 
was  of  that  dignity  that  it  went  hand  in  hand  even  with 
the  vow  he  made  to  her  in  marriage,"  to  whom  he  was  so 
loving  "  that  he  might  not  beteem  the  winds  of  heaven 
visit  her  face  too  roughly."  That  she  should  live  in  sin, 
and  allow  "  the  royal  bed  -of  Denmark  to  be  a  couch  for 
luxury  and  damned  incest,"  was  the  burden  too  great 
for  his  suffering  soul, — a  burden  so  great  that  even  the 
sepulchre  must  ope  its  c:  ponderous  and  marble  jaws"  to 
cast  him  up  again,  that  in  some  way  he  might  put  an 
end  to  this  pollution  of  his  loved  one. 

It  is  this  for  which  he  appeals  to  Hamlet,  "  If  thou 
hast  nature  in  thee,  bear  it  not."  And  yet  with  what 
tenderness  does  he  plead  for  the  erring,  guilty  queen  ! — 

11  Taint  not  thy  mind,  nor  let  thy  soul  contrive 
Against  thy  mother  aught ;  leave  her  to  heaven, 
And  to  those  thorns  that  in  her  bosom  lodge, 
To  prick  and  sting  her." 

And  in  his  second  visit  to  Hamlet  his  words  are  but  few 
other  than  are  inspired  by  his  tender  care  for  her  : 

"  But,  look,  amazement  on  thy  mother  sits  : 
O  step  between  her  and  her  fighting  soul, — 


30  THE  MYSTERY  .OF  HAMLET. 

Conceit  in  weakest  bodies  strongest  works, — 
Speak  to  her,  Hamlet." 

This  is  prefaced  only  by  the  words,— 

11  Do  not  forget :  this  visitation 
Is  but  to  whet  thy  almost  blunted  purpose ;" 

in  which  there  surely  is  but  little  of  the  spirit  of  the  appeal 
which  first  so  fixed  itself  upon  the  public  ear :  "  Hamlet, 
revenge." 

There  is  therefore  at  least  some  little  reason  for  think- 
ing that  neither  the  first  nor  the  second  quarto  gives  the 
drama  in  its  first  state.  A  clue  to  still  another  stage  of 
"  Hamlet"  is  found  in  a  German  play  entitled  "Der  Be- 
strafte  Brudermord,  oder :  Prinz  Hamlet  aus  Daennemark" 
(Fratricide  Punished  ;  or,  Prince  Hamlet  of  Denmark), 
which  there  is  strong  reason  for  believing  to  be  a  free 
adaptation  of  Shakespeare's  "  Hamlet"  in  some  one  of  its 
early  forms.  A  translation  of  this  German  play  is  given 
in  Furness's  Variorum  Shakespeare,  from  which  a  colla- 
tion of  the  drama  as  there  given,  with  the  first  and  second 
quartos  and  first  folio,  shows  the  following  striking  points 
of  difference,  among  others. 

The  curtain  rises  upon  a  prologue  spoken  by  NIGHT,  in  a 
car  covered  by  stars,  who  calls  up  her  children,  the  three 
Furies,  Alecto,  Thisiphone,  and  Maegera,  and  reveals  to 
them  the  story  of  the  king  who,  inspired  by  love  for  the 
wife  of  his  brother,  murdered  him,  that  he  might  possess 
both  her  and  the  kingdom.  NIGHT  calls  upon  the  Furies 
to  aid  her  in  sowing  the  seeds  of  disunion,  mingling 
poison  with  their  marriage,  putting  jealousy  in  their 


DIFFERENT   VERSIONS  OF  THE  STORF.      31 

hearts,  and  kindling  a  fire  of  revenge  of  which  the  sparks 
shall  fly  over  the  whole  realm. 

This  prelude  is  poetical,  and,  with  the  exception  of  a 
few  rhyming  closing  couplets,  embodies  all  the  poetry 
that  is  preserved  in  this  adaptation.  This  mythological 
prologue  is  in  the  vein  of  the  earlier  English  dramatists, 
and  reminds  us  of  the  introduction  to  the  second  part  of 
"  King  Henry  the  Fourth,"  in  which  Rumour,  "  painted 
full  of  tongues,"  prepares  the  way  for  the  opening  of  the 
play.  It  appears  to  be  distinctly  Shakspearian,  and  to  be 
the  translation  of  a  prologue  with  which  the  earlier  repre- 
sentations of  "  Hamlet"  were  prefaced,  but  which  was 
afterward  dropped  by  the  poet  when  revising  and  re- 
writing the  drama. 

There  are  many  c^jfenccs  that  this  German  drama  was 
adapted  neither  fromHB  first  nor  the  second  quarto  nor 
the  present  form  of  ^^Bnglish  play,  but  from  some  other 
form  of  the  story,  o^^Riing  some  passages  that  appear  in 
only  one  of  the  ^^Jeditions,  and  probably  some  points 
that  were  dropp^Bn  them  all,  and  also  omitting  many 
things  that  are  common  to  them  all,  but  which  were  added 
to  the  play  by  Shakespeare  after  their  German  translation 
had  been  made. 

Polonius  appears  as  Corambus,  being,  except  in  one  let- 
ter, the  same  name  as  that  given  him  in  the  first  quarto. 
The  king's  name  is  Erico,  the  queen's  Sigrie.  Osric  and 
the  grave-diggers  do  not  appear,  but,  in  their  place,  the 
comic  element  is  supplied  by  Phantasmo,  the  court  fool, 
and  Jens,  a  peasant,  and  in  the  scene  in  which  the  latter 
begs  the  intercession  of  Phantasmo  and  his  protection  at 
the  court  we  seem  to  have  a  foreshadowing  of  the  inter- 


32  THE  MYSTERY  OF  HAMLET. 

view  between  Autolycus  and  the  shepherd  in  the  "  Win- 
ter's  Tale/'  Rosencrantz  and  Guildenstern  appear  only  as 
two  nameless  attendants,  or  banditti,  who,  starting  for  Eng- 
land in  charge  of  Hamlet,  land  with  him  upon  an  island 
and  there  attempt  to  carry  out  the  king's  orders  for  his 
death,  by  shooting  him.  Hamlet  begs  as  a  favor  that  he 
may  kneel  between  them  in  prayer,  and  may  give  the 
signal  for  his  death  by  stretching  out  his  arms,  when  he 
asks  them  to  aim  both  pistols  at  his  side  and  be  sure  to 
hit  him,  so  that  he  may  not  be  long  in  torture.  He  kneels 
and  gives  the  signal,  and,  just  as  the  two  banditti  pull  trig- 
ger, throws  himself  flat  upon  his  face  between  them,  so 
that  they  shoot  each  other. 

This  is  a  variation  from  the  manner  in  which  Hamlet 
outwits  his  enemies,  as  narrated  in  the  history  of  Belle- 
forest,  and  as  given  in  all  other  editions  of  the  drama,  and 
may  be  a  change  made  by  the  German  adapters.  There 
is  one  reason,  however,  for  thinking  that  the  change  was 
made  by  Shakespeare,  and  that,  later,  he  returned  to  the 
original  story. 

In  our  "  Hamlet"  of  to-day,  the  division  into  acts  is  of 
comparatively  recent  date.  The  last  scene  of  Act  III. 
and  the  first  scene  of  Act  IV.  are  closely  connected  both 
in  time  and  interest,  but  a  long  interval  of  time  elapses 
between  the  close  of  Scene  IV.  of  the  fourth  act  and 
the  opening  of  Scene  V.  Here  it  is  that  the  fourth  act 
should  begin  ;  but  to  divide  the  acts  here  leaves  Act  III. 
very  long  and  Act  IV.  very  short, — less  than  half  the 
length  of  its  predecessor.  Hence,  to  equalize  the  length 
of  the  acts,  four  scenes  properly  connected  with  the  move- 
ment in  Act  III.  are  disconnected  from  it  and  tacked  on  to 


DIFFERENT  VERSIONS  OF  THE  STORY.      33 

the  fourth  act.  "  Fratricide  Punished,"  however,  divides 
the  acts  at  the  point  equivalent  to  the  interval  between  the 
fourth  and  fifth  scenes  of  the  fourth  act,  and  yet  these 
two  acts  in  this  version  are  of  about  equal  length.  In 
our  present  drama  the  third  act  has  been  lengthened  by 
the  introduction  of  Hamlet's  first  interview  with  Ophelia, 
which,  both  in  the  first  quarto  and  in  the  German  play, 
occurs  in  the  second  act.  The  shortness  of  the  proper 
fourth  act  can  be  best  accounted  for  by  the  supposition 
that  something  has  been  cut  out  which  originally  filled  it 
out  to  its  due  length,  and  this  something  appears  to  be 
the  scene  in  the  German  drama  in  which  Hamlet  and  the 
banditti  are  found  upon  the  island,  this  scene  having 
been  at  first  replaced,  to  some  extent,  by  the  interview 
between  Horatio  and  the  queen,  which  is  given  in  the 
first  quarto  but  omitted  in  the  later  editions.  These 
changes  having  made  the  original  third  act  too  long  and 
the  fourth  too  short,  they  have  been  equalized  by  the  easy 
process  of  piecing  the  two  together  and  then  separating 
them  near  the  middle,  regardless  of  the  original  point 
of  juncture. 

Another  instance  of  transposition  of  scenes  is  shown  by 
the  German  tragedy,  in  which  the  court  scene  is  placed  at 
the  end  of  the  first  act  and  after  Hamlet  had  learned  from 
his  father's  spirit  the  truth  as  to  the  murder ;  and  it  is 
this  which  at  first  accounted  for  the  settled  melancholy 
which  so  alarmed  the  king. 

When  the  grave-diggers'  scene  was  introduced,  it  be- 
came necessary  to  remove  the  announcement  of  the  death 
of  Ophelia,  which  in  the  German  tragedy  was  made  in  the 
last  scene  of  the  play,  to  the  end  of  the  fourth  act.  In 

3 


34  THE  MYSTERY  OF  HAMLET. 

the  German  drama,  as  in  the  first  quarto,  the  depth  of 
Hamlet's  apparent  madness  is  more  fully  insisted  upon, 
and  is  made  to  more  closely  resemble  the  brutish  idiocy 
which  the  hero  of  Belleforest's  narration  took  upon  himself. 
/  The  reason  for  the  delay  in  Hamlet's  revenge  is  not 
found  so  much  in  the  character  of  Hamlet  as  in  the  sur- 
rounding circumstances :  again  and  again  it  is  stated  to  be 
the  number  of  guards  with  which  the  king  is  surrounded, 
and  the  difficulty  of  finding  him  unguarded : 

"  My  worthy  friend  Horatio,  through  this  assumed  madness 
I  hope  to  get  the  opportunity  of  revenging  my  father's  death. 
You  know,  however,  that  my  father  is  always  surrounded  by 
many  guards ;  therefore  it  may  miscarry.  Should  you  chance 
to  find  my  dead  body,  let  it  be  honorably  buried ;  for  at  the 
first  opportunity  I  will  try  my  chance  with  him." 

"Unfortunate  prince !  how  much  longer  must  thou  live  with- 
out peace  ?  How  long  dost  thou  delay,  O  righteous  Nemesis  ! 
'  before  thou  whettest  thy  righteous  sword  of  vengeance  for  my 
uncle,  the  fratricide?  Hither  have  I  come  once  more,  but  can- 
not  attain  to  my  revenge,  because  the  fratricide  is  surrounded 
v  all  the  time  by  so  many  people.7' 

The  reason  given  for  not  killing  the  king  at  his  prayers 
is  that  by  then  cutting  him  down,  Hamlet  would  take  upon 
himself  any  sins  which  he  was  about  to  confess. 

The  characteristic  exclamation,  u  A  rat !  a  rat !"  uttered 
by  Hamlet  when  he  hears  the  listening  Polonius,  does  not 
occur  in  "  Fratricide  Punished,"  but  instead  the  question, 
'•  Who  is  that  listening  to  us  ?"  Here,  too,  Hamlet  neither 
so  eulogizes  Horatio,  nor  so  reviles  and  mocks  Polonius,  as 
in  the  English  version. 

The   soliloquies,    the    introspection,  the    cynicism,  the 


DIFFERENT  VERSIONS  OF  THE  STORY.      ;;:, 

irony,  of  Hamlet,  are  all  wanting,  and  nothing  of  the 
mystery  that  enveils  the  hero  whom  we  have  learned  to 
love  enshrouds  the  early  Hamlet. 

The  date  of  this  form  of  the  drama  is  fixed,  with  almost 
absolute  certainty,  to  a  period  within  a  few  years  after 
1589,  by  the  fact  that  when,  after  the  death  of  Polonius, 
or  Corambis,  the  king  proposes  to  send  Hamlet  to  England, 
the  latter  replies, — 

"  Ay,  ay,  King ;  just  send  me  off  to  Portugal,  so  that  I 
may  never  come  back  again." 

Dr.  Latham  was  the  first  to  call  attention,  in  this  con- 
nection, to  the  fact  that  in  an  expedition  to  Portugal,  in 
1589,  of  twenty-one  thousand  soldiers  and  eleven  hundred 
gentlemen,  eleven  thousand  of  the  soldiers  and  seven  hun- 
dred and  fifty  of  the  gentry  perished.  It  is  this,  undoubt- 
edly, to  which  Hamlet  refers,  and  the  probability  is  that 
the  allusion  was  first  made  very  soon  after  the  unfortunate 
event  and  while  it  was  fresh  in  the  minds  of  the  people. 

A  striking  indication  that  this  German  tragedy  was  an 
adaptation  from  an  earlier  play  in  a  foreign  tongue,  which 
was,  at  least  partly,  translated  from  memory  of  its  for- 
eign original,  is  the  fact  that  in  the  allusion  to  Roscius  the 
actor  the  name  is  given  as  Marus  Russig.  Latham  calls 
attention  to  the  fact  that  there  were  two  Roscii,  and  that 
Cicero  delivered  an  oration  in  defence  of  both.  One  was 
Roscius  the  actor;  the  other,  Sextus  Roscius  Amerinm, 
who  was  no  actor  at  all.  It  is  possible  that  Shakespeare, 
when  first  writing  the  tragedy,  confused  the  two  Roscii 
and  gave  the  name  of  the  actor  as  "  Roscius  Amerinus," 
and  that  this  error  was  blindly  followed  ana  the  name  still 
farther  confused  in  the  German  adaptation.  In  later  re- 


36  THE  MYSTERY  OF  HAMLET. 

visions  of  the  English  play,  the  error  was  corrected  by 
striking  out  "  Amerinus."  The  blunder  is  one  which  a 
learned  man  might  inadvertently  commit,  but  which  an 
uneducated  man  could  not  make,  and  J  furnishes  a  proof 
that,  however  or  whenever  the  youthful  Shakespeare  ac- 
quired something  of  a  classical  education,  he  did  succeed 
in  obtaining  more  of  an  education  than  he  has  usually  been 
inven  credit  for. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  HAMLET'S  CHARACTER. 

TAKEN  all  in  all,  there  seems  to  be  strong  reason  for 
believing  that  Shakespeare  first  wrote  u  Hamlet"  as  one  of 
his  earliest  plays,  if  not  his  earliest ;  that  in  this  early  ver- 
sion he  changed  the  old  story,  by  making  the  murder  of 
the  king  a  secret  fratricide  and  by  introducing  the  ghost 
of  Hamlet's  father  to  reveal  the  murder  and  urge  his  son 
to  vengeance,  and  that  the  character  of  Hamlet  was  not 
then  developed  into  its  present  consummate  bundle  of 
human  contradictions  or  enveloped  in  its  present  baffling 
mystery ;  that  nevertheless  it  was  at  first  received  with 
great  popular  favor,  and  did  much  to  establish  the  renown 
of  the  young  dramatist,  who  at  that  time  was  scarcely 
known  to  be  also  a  poet ;  that  at  some  future  date, 
very  possibly  soon  after  the  death  of  his  son  Hamnet  in 
August,  1596,  inspired  to  the  work  by  a  tender  recollec- 
tion of  his  child,  he  rewrote  the  play  entirely,  making 
many  radical  changes,  and  for  the  first  time  developing  the 
character  of  the  hero  into  some  intimate  relationship  to 
the  "  Hamlet"  with  which  we  are  acquainted ;  and  that 
finally,  in  the  maturity  of  his  powers,  say  some  time  be- 
tween 1600  and  1604,  he  took  this  offspring  of  his  early 
genius  and  carefully  revised  and  rewrote  it,  enlarging  it  to 
almost  as  much  again  as  it  was,  and  so  leaving  it  at  last, 

37 


38  THE  MYSTERY   OF  HAMLET. 

after  some  fifteen  years  of  thought  and  study  and  repeated 
trials,  in  the  perfect  shape  in  which  the  world  has  since 
known  it. 

The  strongest  argument  that  has  been  produced  to  op- 
pose the  theory  that  the  early  tragedy  of  "  Hamlet"  was 
written  by  Shakespeare  is  that  Francis  Meres,  in  1598, 
mentions  with  commendation  the  names  of  twelve  of 
Shakespeare's  plays,  and  that  "  Hamlet"  does  not  appear 
in  the  list,  while  u  Titus  Andronicus"  is  included.  Meres. 
however,  did  not  pretend  to  give  a  complete  list  of  Shake- 
speare's plays,  and  omits  "  Pericles"  and  "  Henry  the 
Sixth."  While  it  would  be  strange  if  he  should  omit  our 
"  Hamlet,"  had  it  then  been  known,  it  is  not  strange  that 
the  name  should  be  omitted  from  his  list  if  it  is  admitted 
that  the  "  Hamlet"  of  that  day  was  the  crude  tragedy  of 
which  "  Fratricide  Punished"  is  a  fair  representative. 
When  standing  alone,  it  was  striking  and  popular,  but  its 
first  burst  of  popularity  had  long  since  worn  off,  and  its 
glory  had  been  eclipsed  by  the  beams  of  Shakespeare's 
later  dramas,  so  that  Meres,  when  appealing  to  his  list  of 
plays  representative  of  the  genius  of  Shakespeare,  could 
point  to  a  dozen  others  more  worthy  of  renown  than  this 
first  production  of  his  immature  genius.  It  is  an  evidence 
of  our  great  author's  consummate  powers  that  he  could 
develop  this  first  rough  sketch  into  his  crowning  master- 
piece. 

Let  it  not  be  thought  strange  that  the  play  should  be 
revised  so  many  times.  There  is  much  reason  to  believe 
that  it  was  a  common  practice  to  rearrange  and  rewrite  old 
plays.  It  appears  from  Henslowe's  memorandum  book 
that  within  about  two  years,  from  the  summer  of  1594  to 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  HAMLET'S  CHARACTER.    31) 

that  of  1596,  no  less  than  forty  new  plays  were  got  up  and 
acted,  being  an  average  of  one  each  eighteen  days.  No 
inventive  power  could  stand  this  constant  drain  or  continue 
to  produce  absolutely  new  plays  with  this  rapidity.  We 
know  that  Shakespeare,  like  other  dramatists  of  his  age, 
thought  it  no  harm  to  take  plots  of  earlier  authors,  and 
even  much  of  their  language,  and  recast  them  into  new 
forms.  If  he  could  improve  upon  the  older  play,  then  the 
world  was  so  much  the  better  for  the  improvement.  There 
was  not  that  fear  of  being  accused  of  plagiarism  that  now 
exists.  The  improvement  was  the  excuse,  and  the  suffi- 
cient excuse,  for  the  appropriation. 

In  the  same  way  that  the  dramatists  of  that  age  felt 
themselves  at  liberty  to  improve  upon  the  works  of  their 
predecessors  whenever  they  could,  they  also  believed  in 
revising  their  own  plays  whenever  they  thought  they 
could  better  them,  and  it  appears  to  have  been  a  common 
practice,  when  representing  old  plays,  to  produce  them 
with  such  changes  as  the  riper  experience  of  the  author 
might  dictate.  A  number  of  Shakespeare's  works  bear 
evidence  of  such  revision  ;  and  if  it  is  thought  that  the 
number  of  changes  claimed  in  the  progress  of  "  Hamlet" 
to  its  present  state  is  beyond  all  precedent,  the  facts  that 
'•  Hamlet"  was  probably  one  of  his  earliest  works,  and 
that  it  was  finally  worked  up  into  his  masterpiece,  are  suffi- 
cient to  account  for  them  all. 

Every  word  ~oF~"  Hamlet"  is"  pregnant  with  meaning. 
The  story  can  only  be  really  read  by  a  careful  collation  of 
almost  numberless  little  incidental  allusions,  which,  pieced 
together,  reveal  some  point  that  careless  readers,  by  the 
score,  rush  over  and  never  even  suspect.  }  Even  many 

/ 


40  THE   MYSTERY  OF  HAMLET. 

earnest  students  seem  to  fail  to  catch  much  that  "  Hamlet'5 
has  to  teach  them,  and  few,  if  any,  have  so  pondered  over 
the  magical  pages  that  further  study  does  not  reveal  beau- 
ties before  unknown. 

It  is  in  the  tale  told  by  these  delicate  hints,  far  more 
than  in  the  ground-work  of  the  drama,  that  the  second 
quarto  differs  from  the  first.  This  perfect  art  was  not  an 
inspiration,  but  the  result  of  tender,  brooding  care,  long- 
continued,  of  patient  trials  and  re-trials,  and  of  numerous 
takings  apart  and  fitting  together  again,  until  each  word 
should  fit  perfectly  into  its  place  and  have  its  story  ready 
for  him  who  would  but  listen  to  it.  Shakespeare  thought 
into  this  creation  of  his  brain  all  that  we  can  think  out 
of  it,  and  only  something  of  the  same,  patient,  loving, 
long-continued  carrying  of  it  in  our  mind  and  heart 
that  he  exercised  when  evolving  it  can  enable  us  t<» 
detect  even  the  larger  portion  of  that  which  he  builded 
into  it. 

So  much,  then,  for  the  history  of  our  story.  It  remains 
to  be  seen  whether  a  comparison  of  the  character  and 
surroundings  of  Hamlet  in  our  received  version,  with 
those  of  earlier  forms  of  the  play,  united  with  a  careful 
study  of  the  character  in  itself,  and  of  the  scenes  in  which 
he  was  placed,  can  do  anything  to  remove  the  veil  of 
mystery  that  surrounds  him,  and  enable  us  to  see  him 
with  the  eyes  of  his  maker. 

The  ancient  story  of  the  Danish  Prince  from  which 
Shakespeare  drew  his  first  conception  of  our  drama 
broadly  sketches  a  few  events, — too  few  by  far  to  furnish 
incidents  for  a  five-act  play,  to  hold  the  boards  for  three 
hours  or  more. 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  HAMLET'S  CHARACTER.    41 

The  king  is  openly  struck  down  by  his  brother,  who  is 
inspired  by  a  desire  for  the  rulership  and  by  a  guilty  pas- 
sion for  the  queen.  He  jpeclaims  that  he  found  the  king- 
about  to  kill  the  queen,  and  that  in  attempting  to  defend 
her  he  was  obliged  to  put  her  assailant  to  death.  His 
story  is  believed,  his  course  is  applauded,  and  he  is  in- 
vested with  the  crown.  The  queen,  partly  through  fear 
of  the  revenge  that  he  might  take  upon  herself  and  her 
son  if  she  denied  his  word,  and  partly  as  the  result  of  her 
former  criminal  conduct,  although  she  has  not  plotted  the 
death  of  her  husband,  fails  to  contradict  the  assertion,  and 
soon  marries  the  usurper.  Her  son,  fearing  for  his  life 
and  anxious  to  obtain  an  opportunity  for  revenging  his 
father's  murder,  decides  that  he  can  best  protect  the  one 
and  secure  the  other  by  feigning  idiocy^  and  therefore,  to 
carry  out  the  part  which  he  had  concluded  to  play,  he  rent 
and  tore  his  clothes,  wallowed  in  the  mire,  and  went  about 
filthy  and  distraught,  all  his  actions  being  those  of  a  man 
wholly  deprived  of  all  reason  and  understanding.  The 
king,  believing  that  his  apparent  madness  was  assumed, 
endeavored  to  entrap  him  by  means  of  a  young  woman, 
but  he,  being  forewarned  by  a  faithful  friend,  escaped  the 
snare  that  was  laid  for  him.  An  over-officious  courtier 
endeavored  to  entrap  him  in  confidential  conversation  with 
his  mother,  and,  like  the  later  Polonius,  was  slain  for  his 
pains ;  and  the  following  interview  between  Hamlet  and 
his  mother  was  closely  reproduced  by  Shakespeare.  The 
king,  fearing  to  kill  him  openly,  resolved  to  send  him  to 
England  in  charge  of  two  of  his  courtiers,  who  took  with 
them  letters  to  the  King  of  England  desiring  that  Hamlet 
might  be  put  to  death.  He,  however,  changed  the  letters 


42  THE  MYSTERY  OF  HAMLET. 

so  that  his  companions  suffered  that  fate,  and  he  returned 
to  Denmark. 

When  he  readied  his  home,  he  found  that  the  court- 
iers, supposing  him  dead,  were  celebrating  his  funeral  by 
a  general  carousal.  Hamlet's  unexpected  return  only 
provoked  them  to  still  deeper  drinking,  and  the  prince, 
volunteering  to  play  the  butler,  kept  them  so  well  supplied 
with  liquor  that  they  soon  were  all  stupefied.  Hamlet 
then  threw  down  the  hangings  about  the  wall,  and,  nailing 
them  fast  about  his  unconscious  enemies,  set  fire  to  the 
hall. 

Having  so  disposed  of  the  multitude  who  had  surrounded 
the  king,  and  through  fear  of  whom  he  had  hitherto  been 
restrained  from  attacking  him,  he  now  visited  the  chamber 
of  his  father's  murderer,  and  slew  him,  with  the  words, 
"  Now  go  thy  wayes,  and  when  thou  commest  in  hell,  see 
thou  forget  not  to  tell  thy  brother  (whom  thou  trayterously 
slewest),  that  it  was  his  sonne  that  sent  thee  thither  ;" — an 
expression  which  is  repeated  in  the  words  of  Richard  III. 
when  stabbing  his  predecessor  : 

"Down,  down  to  hell ;  and  say  I  sent  tbee  thither." 

Hamlet,  having  so  accomplished  his  revenge,  addressed 
the  multitude  who  were  drawn  to  the  spot  by  the  burning 
of  the  palace,  in  an  oration  so  eloquent  and  touching  that 
all  were  convinced  of  the  truth  of  his  story  and  with  one 
consent  proclaimed  him  "  King  of  Jutie  and  Chersonnese, 
at  this  present  the  proper  country  of  Denmarke." 

This  is  but  a  slender  story  to  serve  as  the  foundation  of 
a  five-act  drama,  and  much  constructive  skill  is  requisite 
to  continue  the  play  through  its  three  hours'  course  with 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  HAMLET'S  CHARACTER.    43 

a  sustained  interest  throughout.     The  introduction  of  the 
.    ghost ;  of  Ophelia,  maddened  by  the  death  of  her  father  ; 
Laertes,  clamorous  for  revenge^  of  the  court  fool  and 
the  peasant,  afterwards  replaced  by  Osric  and  the  grave- 
diggers,  gives  the  piece  its  necessary  length  ;  but  now  a 
new  difficulty  is  met. 

In  reading  the  old  story,  no  hesitation  or  vacillation  in    N 
the  prince  is  apparent ;  events  move  quickly  in  the  story, 
and  although  much  delay  really  occurred,  it  does  not  strike 
the  reader.     The  excuse  that,  as  the  king  was  constantly 
surrounded  by  an  armed  guard,  Hamlet  was  compelled  to 
wait  for  a  fitting  opportunity,  seems  plausible,  until  the 
play  is  put  upon  the  stage ;  then  it  is  evident  that  a  young ^ 
hero,  panting  with  desire  to  revenge  his  father's  untimely 
death,  would  "sweep  to"  his  "  revenge," 

"And  for  his  means,  would  husband  them  so  well, 
They  should  go  far  with  little." 

Laertes,  in  the  form  of  the  play  given  in  "  Fratricide 
Punished,"  comes  mildly  into  the  presence  of  the  king, 
and  says, — 

u  Gracious  lord  and  king,  I  demand  of  your  majesty  my 
father,  or  just  vengeance  for  his  lamentable  murder.  If 
this  be  not  done,  I  shall  forget  that  you  are  king,  and  re- 
venge myself  on  him  who  has  done  the  deed." 

Later,  however,  in  order  to  more  fully  contrast  his 
character  with  that  of  Hamlet,  he,  with  far  less  cause  to 
seek  revenge,  in  an  instant  brushes  away  the  excuse  as  to 
the  number  of  attendants  constantly  surrounding  the  king, 
and,  raising, a  body  of  followers,  overpowers  the  guards  and 
forces  his  way  to  the  presence  of  the  usurper : 


44  THE  MYSTERY  OF  HAMLET. 

"  To  hell,  allegiance  !  vows,  to  the  blackest  devil ! 
Conscience  and  grace,  to  the  profoimdest  pit ! 
I  dare  damnation  : — to  this  point  I  stand, — 
That  both  the  worlds  I  give  to  negligence, 
Let  come  what  conies  ;  only  I'll  be  revenged 
Most  thoroughly  for  my  father." 

The  exigencies  of  the  play,  however,  deny  such  a 
course  to  Hamlet.  The  death  of  the  king  is  the  end  of 
the  drama :  hence  it  must  be  delayed  until  the  play  has 
run  its  proper  length.  Although  the  original  tragedy  was 
probably  not  more  than  half  the  length  of  that  which 
we  now  have,  even  in  this  short  form  it  soon  was  evi- 
dent that  the  excuses  that  were  given  for  the  delay  were 
not  sufficient.  Hamlet»might  have  made  an  opportunity  : 
if  no  better  had  occurred,  he  might  at  least  have  taken 
that  which  fortune  sent  him  when  he  found  the  murderer 
at  prayer.  He  must  not  seize  it,  however,  for  the  play 
had  not  run  its  proper  course,  and  yet  he  could  not  fail  to 
grasp  it  without  forfeiting  the  character  of  an  earnest, 
loving,  heroic  son,  consumed  with  desire  to  revenge  the 
foul  wrongs  of  his  most  foully  betrayed  and  murdered 
father. 

Now  it  is  that  the  genius  of  our  mighty  poet  is  shown* 
He  sweeps  away  all  excuses  drawn  from  surrounding  cir- 
cumstances, and  places  the  obstacles  to  instant  action  in 
the  character  of  the  prince  himself.  How  consummate  is 
the  skill  which  can  create  such  a  character,  lacking  in 
many  of  the  most  important  elements  that  seem  essential 
to  a  noble,  princely  nature,  and  yet  so  fine  that  all  hu- 
manity is  proud  to  own  its  kinship,  and  feels  only  pity  for 
its  sorrows,  untinged  by  contempt  for  its  weaknesses  ! 


DEVELOPMENT  OF  HAMLET'S  CHARACTER.    45 

None  other  than  Shakespeare  would  dare  to  make  the  at- 
tempt to  present  a  hero  of  this  stamp,  or,  daring,  would 
have  met  with  aught  but  ignominious  failure. 

It  does  not  seem  to  have  been  the  original  Hamlet  of 
Shakespeare  :  scarcely  any  of  the  perplexing  contradic- 
tions of  Hamlet's  mind  are  met  in  "  Fratricide  Punished," 
and  many  of  them  are  lacking  in  the  first  quarto  of  1603. 
The  real  growth  of  the  play,  as  it  was  re-cast  from  time 
to  time,  was  mainly  in  the  development  of  this  charac- 
ter, and,  to  some  extent,  at  least,  it  is  probably  true  that 
Shakespeare  wrote  rather  as  he  must  than  as  he  would. 
His  mighty  creation  must  have  almost  mastered  him. 
Given  the  vital  incidents  of  the  drama  as  Shakespeare 
made  them,  and  the  character  of  the  prince  gradually 
evolved  itself  into  that  which  we  know  it  to  be,  and  he 
who  called  him  into  being  could  hardly  stay  the  process 
or  change  the  result,  even  if  he  were  disposed  to  do  so. 

Hamlet  talked  rather  than  acted,  dallied  with  oppor- 
tunity rather  than  seized  it,  because  an  overwhelming  fate 
decreed  that  he  was  to  be  what  he  was. 


CHAPTER    V. 

THE    TYPE    OF    HAMLET'S    CHARACTER. 

As  Hamlet  lacks  the  energy,  the  conscious  strength,  the 
readiness  for  action  that  inhere  in  the  perfect  manly  char- 
acter, how  comes  it  that  humanity  still  admires  him  ?  Is 
not  the  answer  to  this  query  found  in  the  fact  that  there 
are  two  types  of  human  perfection,  and  that  in  just  the 
same  degree  in  which  he  was  found  to  lack  the  essential 
qualities,  of  one  of  these  types,  he  took  upon  himself  the 
perfections  of  the  other  ? 

When  Grod  created  man  in  his  own  image,  male  and 
female  created  he  them. 

There  is  not  only  a  masculine  type  of  human  perfection, 
but  also  a  feminine  type  ;  and  when  it  became  evident  that 
Hamlet  was  born  lacking  in  many  of  the  elements  of 
virility,  there  grew  up  in  him,  as  compensation,  many  of 
.the  perfections  of  character  more  properly  the  crown,  of 
the  better  half  of  the  human  race.  All  mankind  has 
recognized  the  deep  humanity  of  the  melancholy  prince, 
and  many  have  been  puzzled  to  find  that  they  were  in- 
stinctively compelled  to  bow  before  him  in  admiration, 
while  still  finding  in  him  so  many  faults  and  weaknesses. 
The  depths  of  human  nature  which  Shakespeare  touched 
in  him  have  been  felt  by  all,  but  it  has  scarcely  been 
46 


THE    TYPE   OF  HAMLET'S   CHARACTER.      4*7 

recognized  that  the  charms  of  Hamlet's  mind  are  essen- 
tially feminine  in  their  nature. 

The  masculinity  of  Lady  Macbeth  has  been  universally 
admitted.  With  a  woman's  body  she  united  the  steady 
courage,  the  unyielding  resolution,  that  are  properly  mas- 
culine. 

Lady  Macbeth  and  Hamlet  are  counterparts.  Each  is 
gifted  with  a  mind  naturally  noble,  but  misplaced  in  tl;e 
body  through  which  it  acts,  and  warped  by  the  unfavora- 
ble circumstances  by  which  it  is  surrounded.  Could  Ham- , 
let  and  Lady  Macbeth  have  changed  characters,  neither 
drama  would  have  been  possible.  Hamlet  with  Lady 
Macbeth's  resolution  would  instantly  have  slain  his  father's 
murderer,  and  she  with  his  natural  sweetness  of  mind,  and 
disposition  to  drift  with  circumstances  rather  than  to  con- 
trol them,  would  have  lived  and  died  with  no  foul  crime 
upon  her  soul,  to  trouble  her  with  thick-coming  fancies,  to 
keep  her  from  her  rest  and  wear  her  to  her  death. 

Hamlet,  Macbeth,  and  Lear  constitute  a  trilogy  of  vari- 
ants of  one  central  theme, — the  action  of  a  noble  soul 
under  circumstances  the  most  adverse  to  its  development 
that  can  be  imagined  ;  in  all,  insanity  is  portrayed  and  the 
atmosphere  of  another  world  seems  to  surround  the  spec- 
tator. V 

Gentleness,  and  more  or  less  of  dependence  upon  others, 
are  inherent  qualities  of  the  feminine  nature,  and  Hamlet 
possessed  both. 

Woman,  with  less  of  strength  to  accomplish  her  desires 
by  straightforward  action,  is  compelled  to  bring  them  to 
pass  by  more  of  shrewdness  and  subtlety.  Where  strength 
fails,  finesse  succeeds ;  and  therefore  Hamlet  plans  and 


48  THE   MYSTERY   OF  HAMLET. 

plots.  His  feigned  madness,  his  trial  of  the  mimic  play, 
are  stratagems  that  a  woman  might  attempt,  and  that  are 
far  more  in  keeping  with  a  feminine  than  with  a  masculine 
nature. 

That  Hamlet  preferred  to  win  by  indirect  means,  rather 

v    than  by  driving  straight  forward  to  accomplish  his  end,  is 

a  peculiarity  of  his  nature  that  has  attracted  the  attention 

Says  Dr.  Maudsley, — 

"  Let  it  not  any  longer  escape  attention  that  the  delib- 
erate feigning  of  insanity  was  an  act  in  strict  conformity 
with  Hamlet's  character ;  he  was  by  nature  something  of 
a  dissimulator, — that  faculty  having  been  born  in  him.  .  .  . 
Strange  as  it  may  seem,  we  not  uncommonly  observe  the 
character  of  the  mother,  with  her  emotional  impulses  and 
subtle  but  scarce  conscious  shifts,  in  the  individual  when 
young,  while  the  calm  deliberation  and  conscious  determi- 
nation of  the  father  come  out  more  plainly  as  he  grows 
older.  Setting  aside  any  necessity  which  Shakespeare 
might  think  himself  under  to  follow  the  old  play,  it  is  in 
Hamlet's  inherited  disposition  to  dissimulation  that  we 
find  the  only  explanation  of  his  deliberately  feigning  mad- 
ness, when,  to  all  appearances,  policy  would  have  been 
much  better  served  if  he  had  not  so  feigned.  But  he  has 
a  love  of  the  secret  way  for  its  own  sake ;  to  hoist  the 
engineer  with  his  own  petard  is  to  him  a  most  attractive 
prospect;  and  he  breaks  out  into  positive  exultation  at 
the  idea  of  outwitting  Ilosencrantz  and  Guildenstern,  with 
whom  he  was  to  go  to  England." 

Schlegel,  too,  notes  this  disposition  : 

"  He  is  not  solely  impelled  by  necessity  to  artifice  and 


THE   TYPE   OF  HAMLET'S  CHARACTER.      49 

dissimulation  ;  he  has  a  natural  inclination  to  go  crooked 
ways;  he  is  a  hypocrite  toward  himself;  his  far-fetched 
scruples  are  often  mere  pretexts  to  cover  his  want  of  reso- 
lution :  thoughts,  as  he  says  on  a  different  occasion,  which 
have  but  one  part  wisdom  and  ever  three  parts  coward." 

As  woman,  unable  to  fight  her  battles  by  force  of  arms,  '^ 
finds  in  the  power  of  speech  a  more  efficient  weapon,  so 
Hamlet,  if  words  could  kill,  would  have  accomplished  his  / 
revenge 

"  With  wings  as  swift 
As  meditation,  or  the  thoughts  of  love." 

He  himself  seems  to  feel  that  this  disposition  to  ex- 
pend resolution  in  words  is  womanish,  for  he  exclaims, — 

11  This  is  most  brave, 

That  I,  the  son  of  a  dear  father  murder'd, 
Prompted  to  my  revenge  by  heaven  and  hell ,  •=/- 

Must  .  .  .  fall  a  cursing,  like  a  very  drab, 
A  scullion  !  fie  upon't !"  / 

Carl    llohrbach,    commenting    upon    this    disposition, 
says, — 

u  He  always  talks  more  than  is  necessary  :  ...  At  all  -y 
events,  he  can  under  this  mask  [of  madness]  give  free  play 
to  his  tongue,  and  that,  and  not  the  use  of  his  hands, 
suits  him  above  all  things.     Were  he  a  whole  man  and  no  y 
weakling,  and  if  he  would  go  wisely  to  work,  why  does  he 
not  at  least  keep  his  mouth  shut?  .  .  .  He  is  a  weakling. 
When  he  says,  '  Frailty,  thy  name  is  woman,'  he  might 
have  used  his  own  name  here." 

Hazlitt  remarks  of  the  character  of  Hamlet, — 

"It  is  not  a  character  marked  by  strength  of  will,  or 
4 


50  THE  MYSTERY    OF  HAMLET. 

even  of  passion,  but  by  refinement  of  thought  and  sentiment. 
Hamlet  is  as  little  of  the  hero  as  a  man  can  well  be.  .  .  . 

"  The  character  of  Hamlet  is  made  up  of  undulating 
lines  ;  it  has  the  yielding  flexibility  of  c  a  wave  o'  th' 
sea.'  .  .  . 

"  He  is  full  of  weakness  and  melancholy,  but  there  is 
no  harshness  in  his  nature.  He  is  the  most  amiable  of 
misanthropes." 

Are  not  these  characteristics  thoroughly  feminine  ? 

Let  us  not  be  deceived  by  the  plea  that  Hamlet  does 
not  needlessly  procrastinate  but  merely  wisely  bides  his 
time. 

How  clearly  Bacon  describes  the  drift  of  Hamlet's 
mind  !  "To  seek  to  extinguish  anger  utterly  is  but  a 
bravery  of  the  stoics.  We  have  better  oracles.  ...  In 
refraining  from  anger,  it  is  the  best  remedy  to  win  time, 
and  to  make  a  man's  self  believe  that  the  opportunity  of 
his  revenge  is  not  yet  come  ;  but  that  he  foresees  a  time 
for  it,  and  so  to  still  himself,  in  the  mean  time,  and  re- 
serve it." 

So  Hamlet,  letting  pass  an  unexceptionable  opportunity 
for  revenge,  exclaims,  — 

"    "  Up,  sword  ;    and  know  them  a  more  horrid  bent  :    .  .   . 
This  physic  but  prolongs  thy  sickly  days." 

This  was  no  horrible  refinement  of  cruelty,  but  a  mere 
make-shift  to  win  time. 

The  true  secret  of  Hamlet's   dalliance   lies,  partly  at 


,  in  a  fear  of  death.     It  was  not  so  difficult  to  find  an 
opportunity  as  it  was  certain  that  the  king's  death  would 


THE    TYPE   OF  HAMLET'S   CHARACTER.      51 

immediately  be  revenged  by  the  destruction  of  his  slayer. 
This  it  is  that  supplies  the  clue  to  his  soliloquy : 

"  To  be,  or  not  to  be, — that  is  the  question : — 
Whether  'tis  nobler  in  the  mind  to  suffer 
The  slings  and  arrows  of  outrageous  fortune, 
Or  to  take  arms  against  a  sea  of  troubles, 

And  by  opposing  end  them  ? — To  die " 

* 

The  question  in  Hamlet's  mind  is  whether  he  piiall  take 
a  course  which  will  insure  his  own  safety  and  enable  him 
to  continue  to  live,  and  so  "  to  be,"  or  whether  he  shall, 
by  assaulting  the  king,  invite  his  own  death,  and  so  ex- 
tinguish his  own  earthly  being.  Shall  Hamlet  be  or  not 
be? — that  is  the  question  with  him.  He  sees  Jhat  it  is 
possible  for  him  to  end  his  troubles  by  taking  arms  and 
actively  opposing  them,  but  that  such  a  course  will  prob- 
ably be  followed  by  his  own  death,  and  from  that  prospect 
he  shrinks,  and,  after  stating  why  it  is  that 

"  Thus  conscience  does  make  cowards  of  us  all ;" 
he  adds, — 

a  And  thus  the  native  hue  of  resolution 
Is  sicklied  o'er  with  the  pale  cast  of  thought  ; 
And  enterprises  of  great  pith  and  moment, 
"With  this  regard,  their  currents  turn  awry, 
And  lose  the  name  of  action."  f 

The  enterprise  of  great  pith  and  moment  which  Hamlet 
had  in  view  was  the  revenge  of  the  foul  murder  done  to 
his  father,  and  the  reason  clearly  given  by  him  why  he 
allowed  this  enterprise  to  "  lose  the  name  of  action"  is  that 


52  THE   MYSTERY  OF  HAMLET. 

11  The  dread  of  something  after  death, — 
The  undiscover'd  country,  from  whose  bourn 
No  traveller  returns, — puzzles  the  will, 
And  makes  us  rather  bear  those  ills  we  have, 
Than  fly  to  others  that  we  know  not  of." 

This  shuddering  recoil  from  even  the  possibility  of  death 
h$s  been  passed  unnoticed  by  many  commentators,  but  has 
attracted  the  attention  of  a  few,  among  them  being  Mr. 
Jones  Very,  who  in  an  essay  published  in  1839  expressed 
his  belief  as  to  Hamlet's  mental  state  in  the  following 
words : 

"  It  is  to  this  condition  that  Hamlet  has  been  reduced. 
.  .  .  He  fears  nothing  save  the  loss  of  existence.  .  .  . 
This  is  the  hinge  on  which  his  every  endeavor  turns. 
Such  a  thought  as  this  might  well  prove  more  than  an 
equal  counterpoise  to  any  incentive  to  what  we  call 
action.  .  .  .  The  thoughts  of  this  soliloquy  are  not  found 
to  belong  to  a  particular  part  of  the  play,  but  to  be  the 
spirit  of  the  whole.  '  To  be,  or  not  to  le,'  is  written 
over  its  every  scene,  from  the  entrance  of  the  ghost 
to  the  rude  inscription  over  the  gateway  of  the  church- 
yard." 

XTXlthougb  the  love  of  life  is  instinctive  in  all  animate 
creatures,  this  timid  shrinking  from  its  possible  loss,  this 
resolution  to  bear  even  the  murder  of  his  father,  the  pol- 
lution of  his  mother,  the  theft  of  his  crown,  rather  than  to 
run  any  risk  by  attempting  to  end  his  ills,  is  certainly  not 
x.  what  we  should  expect  from  a  noble  prince,  the  son  of  a 
man  who  did  not  shrink  from  meeting  Fortinbras  hand  in 
hand  in  a  mortal  struggle.  This  dread  of  something  after 
death  it  was  that  induced  him  to 


THE    TYPE   OF  HAMLET  :S  CHARACTER.      53 

"  Bather  bear  those  ills  he  had, 
Than  fly  to  others  that  he  knew  not  of," 

notwithstanding  that  weariness  which  he  suffered  from  the 
weight  of  the  burdens  laid  upon  him,  which  caused  him  to 
despairingly  wish  that 


"  The  Everlasting  had  not  fix'd 
His  canon  'gainst  self-slaughter." 


His  weariness  of  life  is  shown  again  in  his  disconsolate 
reply  to  Polonius's 


<;  My  honorable  lord,  I  will  most  humbly  take  my  leave  of 
you." 

"You  cannot,  Sir,  take  from  me  anything  that  I  will  more 
willingly  part  withal, — except  my  life,  except  my  life,  except 


No  slur  is  meant  in  saying  that  this  half-confessed 
shrinking  of  Hamlet  from  the  role  that  fate  had  called 
upon  him  to  play  is  what  we  should  expect  from  a  gently- 
nurtured  woman,  rather  than  from  a  fervid  young  prince 
glowing  with  desire  to  end  unequalled  wrongs. 


0  CHAPTER    VI. 

HAMLETS   NATURE   ESSENTIALLY   FEMININE. 

f      IN  the  impulsiveness  which  causes  the  hasty  exclama- 
tion,— 

u  Unhand  me,  gentlemen  ; — 
By  heaven,  I'll  make  a  ghost  of  him  that  lets  me  !;J 

which  induces  him  to  jump  into  Ophelia's  open  grave  with 
Laertes,  which  leads  him  to  slay  Polonius  the  instant  that 
he  sees  the  hangings  stir,  and  which  enables  him  at  last  to 
take  his  full  revenge  upon  the  spur  of  the  moment  and 
without  premeditation, we  see  another  feminine  trait;  and 
/  still  another  in  that  love  of  obtaining  the  advantage  in  a 
^  wordy  warfare,  which  induces  him  to  tantalize  and  mock 
at  Polonius  and  Osric.  How  skilfully  can  he  use  his 
tongue,  and  how  readily  does  he  flay  with  it  all  with  whom 
he  comes  in  contact,  save  only  one, — Horatio. 

In  his  disgust  at  the  c:  heavy-headed  revel"  of  the  king 
and  his  companions,  in  his  u  pretty  oaths," — "  Angels  and 
ministers  of  grace  defend  us !" — "  By  heaven,  I'll  make  a 
ghost  of  him  that  lets  me  !" — "  By  heaven,  I'll  have  it  !"- 
"  Yes,  by  heaven  !" — in  his  fear  of  breaking  into  tears. — 

"  Do  not  look  upon  me  ; 
Lest  with  this  piteous  action  you  convert 
54 


HIS  NATURE  ESSENTIALLY  FEMININE.       55 

My  stern  effects  :  then  what  I  have  to  do 

Will  want  true  color ;  tears,  perchance,  for  blood  ;" — 

in  all,  we  see  traits  more  characteristic  of  the  gentler  than 
of  the  sterner  sex. 

But  far  more  strange  than  all  these  is  the  fact  that  all* 
his  admiration  is  for  manly  strength  and  manly  virtues, 
while  upon  feminine  peculiarities,  upon  womankind  in 
general,  and  upon  his  mother  and  Ophelia  in  particular, 
he  pours  out  all  the  bitterness  of  his  detestation.  Here 
is  an  anomaly  almost  against  nature.  The  Creator  has 
planted  in  humanity  a  subtle  attraction  toward  the  oppo- 
site sex,  which  in  a  man,  and  particularly  in  a  man  of 
Hamlet's  age,  invests  all  womankind  with  a  tender  charm. 
Each  sex  admires  the  characteristic  virtues  of  the  other 
and  thinks  slightly  of  its  own  good  qualities.  As  in  two 
magnets  similar  poles  repel  each  other  while  the  opposite 
poles  attract,  so  in  the  human  race  this  mutual  attraction 
between  opposites  and  repulsion  of  counterparts  exists. 
This  frequently  makes  the  tie  between  mother  and  son, 
father  and  daughter,  more  strong  and  tender  than  between 
father  and  son  or  mother  and  daughter. 

In  Hamlet,  however,  we  find  an  entire  inversion  of 'what 
we  should  have  expected.  His  admiration  is  expended 
upon  men  and  masculine  perfections  alone.  His  eulogy 
of  man, — 

"What  a  piece  of  work  is  man!  how  noble  in  reason! 
how  infinite  in  faculty  !  in  form  and  moving,  how  expn--- 
and  admirable!  in  action,  how  like  an  angel!  in  appre- 
hension, how  like  a  god  !  the  beauty  of  the  worldj  tlio 
paragon  of  animals!" — 


56  THE  MYSTERY   OF  HAMLET. 

his  panegyrics  of  his  father, — 

u  He  was  a  man,  take  him  for  all  in  all.   .   .   . 
See,  what  a  grace  was  seated  on  this  brow : 
Hyperion  :s  curls  :  the  front  of  Jove  himself; 
An  eye  like  Mars,  to  threaten  and  command  ; 
A  station  like  the  herald  Mercury, 
New-lighted  on  a  heaven-kissing  hill ; 
A  combination  and  a  form  indeed, 
Where  every  god  did  seem  to  set  his  seal, 
To  give  the  world  assurance  of  a  man:" — 

and  his  dying  appeal  to  Horatio, — 

"  As  thou'rt  a  man, 
Give  me  the  cup  :" — 

show  how  earnest  and  deep-seated  was  his  regard  for  a 
perfect  manly  character.  This  striking  appreciation  of 
masculine  excellence  was  combined  with  an  equally  re- 
markable detestation  of  all  womankind  and  aversion  to 
womanly  qualities.  Witness  his  well-known  phrase, — 

"Frailty,  thy  name  is  woman  !" 
his  reply  to  Ophelia's 

"  'Tis  brief,  my  lord." 
"  As  woman's  love  ;" 
and  his 

u  Now  get  you  to  my  lady's  chamber  and  tell  her,  let  her 
paint  an  inch  thick,  to  this  favor  she  must  come." 

In  his  treatment  of  Ophelia  and  of  his  mother  this  trait 


HIS  NATURE  ESSENTIALLY  FEMININE.       57 

is  exhibited  still  more  powerfully :  in  fact,  such  is  the  ab- 
horrence which  he  expresses  of  their  frailties  and  weak- 
nesses that  it  irresistibly  suggests  the  question,  Is  not  this 
more  like  the  bitterness  of  one  woman  against  the  failings 
of  another,  than  like  the  half  compassion,  "  more  in  sor- 
row than  in  anger,"  with  which  a  man  regards  a  feminine 
weakness?  Is  not  this  railing,  in  which  he  "  out-herods 
Herod"  and  is  ever  "  o'erdoing  Termagant."  more  suggest- 
ive of  the  asperity  with  which  women  are  thought  to 
regard  the  misdoings  of  their  sisters,  than  of  any  dis- 
pleasure with  which  their  sterner  companions  view  the 
same  faults? 

It  may  even  be  asked  of  his  bitter  harangue -against  the 
tender  Ophelia,  whether  it  is  possible  that  any  young  man 
of  refined  training  and  possessing  any  real  nobility  of  char- 
acter could  so  scourge  the  maiden  whom  he  has  at  least 
pretended  to  love,  whom  he  has  but  slight  apparent  cause 
so  to  strike  down  with  brutal  words,  and  who  meets  his 
bitterness  only  with  mild  and  gentle  replies  : 

"Wise  men  well  know  what  monsters  3^011  make  of  them. 
...  I  have  heard  of  your  paintings  too,  well  enough :  God 
has  given  you  one  face,  and  you  make  yourselves  another ; 
you  jig,  you  amble,  and  you  lisp,  and  nickname  God's  crea- 
tures, and  make  your  wantonness  your  ignorance." 

Did  ever  a  noble  youth  so  abuse  and  insult  a  lovely 
gentle  girl  ? 

The  only  scenes  in  Shakespeare  which  can  be  compared 
with  this  (and  these  are  but  feeble  hints  of  the  district 
and  acerbity  which  are  exhibited  with  cruel  intensification 
in  this  interview  between  Hamlet  and  Ophelia)  are  those 


58  THE   MYSTERY   OF  HAMLET. 

in  which  the  disguised  Viola,  in  her  conference  with  Olivia, 
shows  a  woman's  natural  suspicion  of  that 

"  Beauty  truly  blent,  whose  red  and  white 
Nature's  own  sweet  and  cunning  hand  laid  on," 

and  says, — 

"  Excellently  done,  if  God  did  all," 
and  soon  after  adds, — 

"  I  see  what  you  are:  you  are  too  proud  ;" 

and  the  other  scene,  in  which  the  disguised  Rosalind,  with 
a  woman's  frankness  in  relation  to  another  woman's 
charms,  retaliates  upon  Phebe  for  her  cruelty  to  Sylvius 
by  saying — 

u  What  though  you  have  more  beauty, 
(As,  by  my  faith,  I  see  no  more  in  you 
Than  without  candle  may  go  dark  to  bed,) 
Must  you  be  therefore  proud  and  pitiless  ? 
Why,  what  means  this  ?     Why  do  you  look  on  me  ? 
I  see  no  more  in  you  than  in  the  ordinary 
Of  nature's  sale-work.     Od's  my  little  life  ! 
I  think  she  means  to  tangle  my  eyes  too. — 
No,  faith,  proud  mistress,  hope  not  after  it. 
'Tis  not  your  inky  brows,  your  black  silk  hair, 
Your  bugle  eyeballs,  nor  your  cheek  of  cream, 
That  can  entame  my  spirits  to  your  worship. — 
.  .  .  Mistress,  know  yourself;  down  on  your  knees, 
And  thank  heaven,  fasting,  for  a  good  man's  love : 
For  I  must  tell  you  friendly  in  your  ear, — 
Sell  when  you  can  ;  you  are  not  for  all  markets." 


HIS  NATURE  ESSENTIALLY  FEMININE.      59 

Taking  Hamlet's  taunts  of  Ophelia  by  themselves,  it 
might  be  imagined  that  in  this  scene,  as  in  the  others  just 
referred  to,  the  apparently  masculine  railer  was  in  reality 
but  a  woman  attempting  to  play  a  man's  part. 

The  question  may  be  asked,  whether  Shakespeare,  having 
been  compelled  by  the  course  and  exigencies  of  the  drama 
to  gradually  modify  his  original  hero  into  a  man  with  more 
and  more  of  the  feminine  element,  may  not  at  last  have 
had  the  thought  dawn  upon  him  that  this  womanly  man 
might  be  in  very  deed  a  woman,  desperately  striving  to 
fill  a  place  for  which  she  was  by  nature  unfitted,  and,  in 
her  failure  to  do  that  which  it  was  impossible  for  her  to 
do,  earning  an  admiration  and  a  pity  which  no  mere  weak- 
ling, dawdling  about  his  proper  task  and  meanly  failing  to 
achieve  it,  could  inspire. 

It  is  not  claimed  that  any  such  thought  was  in  our  im- 
mortal poet's  mind  when  first  he  conceived  and  put  the 
drama  into  shape :  the  evidence  is  strongly  to  the  contrary. 
It  is  not  even  claimed  that  Shakespeare  ever  fully  intended 
to  represent  Hamlet  as  indeed  a  woman.  It  -is  claimed 
that  in  the  gradual  evolution  of  the  feminine  element  in 
Hamlet's  character  the  time  arrived  when  it  occurred  to 
the  dramatist  that  so  might  a  woman  act  and  feel,  if  edu- 
cated from  infancy  to  play  a  prince's  part,  and  that  there- 
after the  changes  in  the  character  and  in  the  play  were  all 
in  the  direction  of  a  development  of  this  idea.  Yery 
possibly  the  poet  half  juggled  with  himself  in  the  matter.  • 
It  is  related  of  Thackeray, — like  Shakespeare,  but  half 
appreciated  by  his  own  generation, — that  when  asked  to 
finish  the  story  of  il  Vanity  Fair"  by  disclosing  whether 
Becky  Sharp  killed  Joseph,  he  answered,  :'  I  don't  know/' 


60  THE  MYSTERY    OF  HAMLET. 

So  may  Shakespeare  have  said  of  Hamlet.  That  the 
idea  of  Hamlet's  femininity  was  in  Shakespeare's  mind, 
that  he  at  least  entertained  the  thought,  dallied  with  it, 
and  re- worded  much  of  the  drama  to  further  develop 
it  and  remove  all  that  was  inconsistent  with  it,  we  shall 
endeavor  to  prove. 

Let  not  the  strangeness  of  this  idea  lead  to  its  instant 
rejection,  without  consideration,  but  rather  "  as  a  stranger 
give  it  welcome." 

Before  considering  the  facts  which  more  directly  tend 
to  confirm  the  view  above  suggested,  it  will  be  proper  to 
remember  what  a  favorite  fancy  it  was  of  Shakespeare's 
to  allow  his  heroines  to  masquerade  in  male  attire.  He 
seems  to  have  had  an  intuitive  fondness  for  placing  his 
characters  in  the  situations  most  foreign  to  their  natural 
dispositions,  and  then  allowing  their  natural  peculiarities 
to  show  themselves  and  reveal  the  real  nature  of  the  human 
being  whom  he  had  created,  in  spite  of  all  disguises  and 
through  them  all. 

In  "King  Lear,"  for  instance,  the  drama,  when  it  opens, 
shows  us  a  man  at  the  summit  of  human  prosperity, — the 
king  of  a  noble  realm,  surrounded  by  only  those  who  hasten 
to  do  his  will ;  with  many  apparent  friends,  and  at  least 
one  true  friend ;  with  three  children  whom  he  believed  to 
love  him,  and  of  whom  at  least  one  possessed  an  unsur- 
passed depth  of  true  and  fond  affection  for  him  ;  with 
riches  and  possessions  so  great  that  no  more  could  be  de- 
sired ;  with  no  want  ungratified,  no  need  unsupplied. 
Him,  so  rich,  we  see  almost  instantly  stripped  of  all  his 
blessings:  his  fair-weather  friends  desert  him;  his  children 
conspire  against  him ;  his  possessions  are  put  away  by  his 


HIS  NATURE  ESSENTIALLY  FEMININE.       <;l 

own  hands  and  he  is  powerless  to  take  them  again;  hi> 
one  true  friend  is  driven  from  him  ;  his  one  loving  child 
is  an  outcast ;  he  himself  is  driven  out  into  a  wintry  storm, 
with  scarcely  clothing  enough  to  cover  him  and  with  no 
shelter  to  protect  him  from  the  tempest.  Finally,  even 
his  last  possession,  his  mind,  is  taken  from  him,  and  he 
has  nothing  left.  The  change  is  the  greatest  that  it  is  in 
our  power  to  conceive,  and  in  this  unexampled  change  the 
true  character  of  the  man  is  revealed. 

The  same  genius  that  led  Shakespeare  to  delight  in  so 
radical  a  transformation  as  this  led  him  also  to  delight  in 
fancying  how  his  characters  would  act  if  called  upon  to 
fill  the  role  of  a  person  of  the  other  sex.  There  is  but 
little  ropm  fer  pleasure  in  fancying  a  man  essaying  to  play 
a  woman's  part ;  but  when  the  role  is  reversed  a  situation 
is  created  which  appears  to  have  attracted  our  author  with 
an  irresistible  fascination,  and  of  which  he  seems  never 
to  have  tired.  Imogen,  Viola,  Rosalind,  Julia,  Portia. — - 
how  he  plays  the  changes  on  this  one  theme  and  never 
wearies  of  it !  In  all  these,  however,  the  disguise  is  but 
temporary :  before  the  comedy  ends  each  retakes  her 
proper  character  ;  but  in  a  tragedy  the  part  once  taken 
must  be  a  life-long  bondage,  with  no  escape  but  death.  / 


CHAPTER    VII. 

HAMLET'S    LOVE    FOR     HORATIO    AND    JEALOUSY    OF 
OPHELIA. 

WE  have  already  glanced  at  some  of  the  feminine  pe- 
culiarities of  Hamlet's  mind,  and  have  noticed  not  only 
his  detestation  of  womanly  weaknesses  but  also  his  regard 
for  the  character  of  a  perfect  man.  In  this  connection 
let  us  recur  to  the  affection  of  Hamlet  for  Horatio,  with 
the  question  whether  it  is  not  rather  the  love  with  which 
•i  woman  in  Hamlet's  position  might  have  regarded  him, 
than  any  mere  friendship,  such  as  may  be  supposed  to 
exist  between  old-time  fellow-collegians.  It  is  evident 
that  this  depth  of  intimacy  had  not  existed  when  they 
were  both  at  Wittenberg ;  there  they  had  become  some- 
what acquainted,  but,  from  the  difference  in  rank  between 
the  Prince  of  Denmark,  the  heir-apparent  to  the  crown, 
and  the  fortuneless  Horatio,  who 

"  No  revenue  had  but  his  good  spirit-, 
To  feed  and  clothe  him,v 

or  for  some  other  cause,  their  relations  had  been  so  far 
from  familiar  that  Horatio  had  come  from  Wittenberg  to 
attend  the  late  king's  funeral,  and  had  remained  about  the 
court  for  some  two  months  without  having  been  seen  by 
his  former  fellow-student.  From  the  time,  however,  when 
62 


HAMLET'S  LOVE  AND   JEALOUS!'.  (]:\ 

Horatio  and  Marcellus  bad  revealed  to  him  that  they  had 
seen  his  father's  spirit,  and  when  they  together  had  watched 
for  its  return,  we  find  Hamlet  and  Horatio  almost  con- 
stantly together,  bound  to  each  other  by  a  friendship  almost 
unequalled.  Hamlet  will  not  reveal  the  secret  of  the  mission 
of  his  father's  ghost  to  Horatio  and  Marcellus  while  the  two 
are  together,  buT:  at  the  first  opportunity  he  seems  to  have 
disclosed  the  story  fully  to  Horatio,  alone,  for  the  next 
time  that  Horatio  appears  upon  the  stage  Hamlet  speaks 

to  him  of 

"The  circumstance, 
Which  I  have  told  thee,  of  my  father's  death/' 

In  the  interview  between  Hamlet  and  the  queen,  the 
former  speaks  of  his  knowledge  of  the  king's  purpose  to 
send  him  to  England,  although  there  is  nothing  to  show 
how  he  came  to  learn  of  this  plan.  It  has  been  suggested 
that  he  had  managed  to  place  Horatio  in  some  office  or 
employment  about  the  court,  and  that  through  him  he 
may  have  learned  this  secret. 

When  Hamlet  escapes  from  the  ship  in  which  he  was 
being  carried  to  England,  his  first  action  is  to  write  to 
Horatio,  telling  him  as  much  as  is  safe  to  intrust  to  a  letter, 
and  beseeching  him,  "  Repair  them  to  me  with  as  much 
haste  as  thou  wouldst  fly  death."  The  letter  ends,  "  He 
that  thou  knowest  thine," — a  signature  in  striking  contraM 
to  that  affixed  to  his  letter  to  Ophelia. 

In  the  grave-yard  scene  Hamlet  and  Horatio  enter  to- 
gether, and  the  next  scene  opens  with  the  words  addressed 
by  the  prince  to  his  faithful  friend, — 

"  So  much  for  this,  sir  ;   now  let  me  see  the  other." 


64  THE  MYSTERY   OF  HAMLET. 

It  is  evident  that  this  opening  phrase  ends  the  narration 
by  Horatio  to  Hamlet  of  the  incidents  that  had  occurred 
at  the  court  since  the  latter' s  departure,  including  the  mad- 
ness and  death  of  Ophelia.  This  is  followed  by  a  full  re- 
lation by  Hamlet  of  his  adventures  at  sea.  In  this  scene 
Hamlet  appears  almost  nervously  anxious  that  Horatio 
shall  approve  of  his  course.  He  seeks  to  stifle  his  pity  for 
the  death  of  Rosencrantz  and  Guildenstern  by  represent- 
ing their  treachery  and  their  love  for  their  base  employ- 
ment ;  he  asks  Horatio's  approval  of  his  intended  attack 
upon  the  king,  and  apologizes  to  him  for  his  assault  upon 
Laertes. 

Among  the  ills  enumerated  by  Hamlet  in  his  soliloquy, 
most  of  which  were  those  which  he  himself  had  expe- 
rienced, is  that  caused  by  "  the  pangs  of  disprized  love." 
In  the  first  quarto  this  line  is  lacking ;  in  the  second  and 
third  quartos  it  appears  as  "  despiz'd  love,"  which  is  changed 
in  the  folios  to  the  form  above  given  :  and  this  change,  with 
the  delicate  shade  of  new  meaning  in  the  new  word,  makes 
the  phrase  peculiarly  applicable  to  the  love  that  we  may 
imagine  Hamlet  to  have  had  for  Horatio.  Furness  re- 
marks,— 

"  A  love  that  is  disprized  falls  more  frequently  to  the 
lot  of  man,  and  is  perhaps  more  hopeless  in  its  misery, 
than  a  love  that  is  despised.  As  Corson  says,  '  Perhaps  a 
disprized  or  undervalued  love,  a  love  that  is  only  partially 
appreciated  and  responded  to,  would  be  apt  to  suffer  more 
pangs  than  a  despised  love.'  After  all,  this  passage  is 
merely  one  of  the  numberless  puzzles  in  the  text  of  Shake- 
speare." 

Horatio  did  not  despise  the  affection  of  Hamlet,  but  he 


HAMLET'S  LOVE  AND   JEALOUSY.  65 

can  have  had  but  the  dimmest  apprehension  of  the  depth 
of  Hamlet's  whole-hearted  love  and  never  suspected  the 
true  cause  of  the  latter's  confidence  in  him.  Hence  Hamlet 
could  not  but  have  felt  that  his  love  was  and  must  ever 
remain  "  disprized." 

His  eulogy  of  Horatio  in  the  third  act  is  characterized 
by  a  warmth  of  fondness  and  admiration  far  greater  than 
is  natural  between  friends  of  the  same  sex : 

u  Horatio,  thou  art  e'en  as  just  a  man 
As  e'er  my  conversation  coped  withal.  .  .  . 
Since  my  dear  soul  was  mistress  of  her  choice, 
And  could  of  men  distinguish,  her  election 
Hath  seal'd  thee  for  herself. 
.  .  .  Give  me  that  man 

That  is  not  passion's  slave,  and  I  will  wear  him 
In  my  heart's  core,  ay,  in  my  heart  of  heart. 
As  1  do  thee." 

Then,  fearing  that  fervor  had  led  to  protestation  too 
strong,  this  evidence  of  feeling  is  suppressed  with  the 
words, — 

u  Something  too  much  of  this." 

Then  follows  an  appeal  for  his  aid  in  carrying  out  the  plot 
by  means  of  which  he  hoped  to  reveal  the  guilt  of  the 
king.  In  the  last  scene  of  all,  the  depth  of  affection  be- 
tween the  two  is  strikingly  shown.  When  first  he  feels 
the  effects  of  the  poisoned  blade,  it  is  to  Horatio  that  he 
cries, — 

"  I  am  dead,  Horatio." 

And,  upon  Horatio's  attempt  to  drink  the  poisoned  draught 

5 


G6  THE  MYSTERY  OF  HAMLET. 

that  they  may  die  together,  he  rallies  all  his  failing  strength 
to  wrest  it  from  him,  with  the  desperate  cry, — 

u  Give  me  the  cup  ;  let  go  ;  by  heaven,  I'll  have  't. —  .... 
If  thou  didst  ever  hold  me  in  thy  heart, 
Absent  thee  from  felicity  awhile, 
And  in  this  harsh  world  draw  thy  breath  in  pain, 
To  tell  my  story.  .  .  . 
.  .  .  Oh,  I  die,  Horatio.'' 

It  has  been  noticed  that  all  who  come  within  the  range 
of  Hamlet's  tongue,  save  only  Horatio,  have  reason  to  fear 
that  ever-ready  weapon ;  its  lashes  fall  upon  all  alike :  the 
king,  the  queen,  Ophelia,  Polonius,  and  Osric,  all,  by  turn, 
writhe  under  its  stings.  Before  Horatio,  however,  this 
prince,  so  merciless  to  others,  humbly  bows  for  approval. 

This  earnest  aifection  for  Horatio  is  in  striking  contrast 
to  his  heartless  treatment  of  Ophelia.  The  time  was  when, 
perhaps,  he  could  find  amusement  in  trifling  with  her  and 
playing  at  love  ;  that  it  was  but  trifling  is  evident  not  only 
from  his  after-conduct,  but  from  his  mocking  letter  to 
Ophelia : 

"To   the   celestial,  and   my  soul's   idol,  the  most  beautified 
Ophelia/''' 

It  is  no  wonder  that  Polonius  should  have  exclaimed, 
"  That's  an  ill  phrase,  a  vile  phrase  ;  ( beautified'  is  a  vile 
phrase."  Hamlet's  idea  of  the  arts  by  which  Ophelia  was 
"  beautified"  is  explained  at  length  in  his  bitter  raillery  at 
her  in  his  later  interview  with  her.  The  body  of  the  letter 
is  but  a  continuation  of  the  mockery  with  which  it  com- 


HAMLET'S  LOVE  AND  JEALOUSY.  07 

"  Doubt  thou  the  stars  arc  fire ; 

Doubt  that  the  sun  doth  move  ; 
Doubt  truth  to  be  a  liar ; 
But  never  doubt  I  love." 

The  conclusion  of  the  king  must  be  that  of  all : 

11  Love  ?  his  affections  do  not  that  way  tend  ; 
]S"or  what  he  spake,  though  it  lackrd  form  a  little, 
Was  not  like  madness." 

In  the  scene  at  Ophelia's  grave,  there  is  evidence  of 
many  other  feelings  ;  but  of  love,  none.  He  is  stung  by 
the  knowledge  that  it  is  to  him  that  Ophelia's  death  is 
owing,  and  stung  by  Laertes's  curse  upon  him,  but  far 
more  deeply  is  he  chafed  by  the  manly  vigor  of  Laertes 
and  his  evident  readiness  to  do  instantly  whatever  fate  may 
require  of  him.  He  feels  that  he  himself  has  shown  but 
scanty  love  for  his  murdered  father,  and  has  failed  to  fill 
the  part  that  it  was  his  duty  to  perform^  Lrfris'interview 
with  the  players,  he  was.  cut  to  the  heart  by  the  feeling 
that  the  actor  who 

•;  But  in  a  fiction,  in  a  dream  of  passion, 
Could  force  his  soul  so  to  his  own  conceit 
That  from  her  working  all  his  visage  wann'd  : 
Tears  in  his  eyes,  distraction  in  Js  aspect, 
A  broken  voice,  and  his  whole  function  suiting 
With  forms  to  his  conceit.     And  all  for  nothing !'' — 

had  he  k':  the  motive  and  the  cue  for  passion"  that  he  him- 
self had, 

u  Would  drown  the  stage  with  tears 
And  cleave  the  general  ear  with  horrid  speech, 


68  THE  MYSTERY  OF  HAMLET. 

Make  mad  the  guilty,  and  appall  the  free, 
Confound  the  ignorant,  and  amaze  indeed 
The  very  faculties  of  eyes  and  ears ;" 

while  he  himself, 

11  A  dull  and  muddy-mettled  rascal,  peak, 
Like  John-a-dreams,  unpregnant  of  his  cause, 
And  could  say  nothing  ;  no,  not  for  a  king, 
Upon  whose  property  and  most  dear  life 
A  damn'd  defeat  was  made." 

Again,  when  he  sees  the  army  of  Fortinbras  marching 
to  war  in  a  dispute  about  a  little  patch  of  ground  which 
would  not  yield  five  ducats  should  it  be  sold  in  fee,  he 
feels  that  "  all  occasions  do  inform  against"  him.  and  that 
he  is  exhorted  by  "  examples  gross  as  earth." 

"How  stand  I  then, 

That  have  a  father  kill'd,  a  mother  stain'd, 
Excitements  of  my  reason  and  my  blood, 
And  let  all  sleep,  while  to  my  shame  I  see 
The  imminent  death  of  twenty  thousand  men. 
That  for  a  fantasy  and  trick  of  fame 
Go  to  their  graves  like  beds,  fight  for  a  plot 
Whereon  the  numbers  cannot  try  the  cause, 
Which  is  not  tomb  enough  and  continent 
To  hide  the  slain?     Oh,  from  this  time  forth, 
My  thoughts  be  bloody,  or  be  nothing  worth  !'7 

So  when  he  sees  the  depth  of  feeling  which  Laertes  shows 
at  Ophelia's  grave,  and  realizes  that  he  would  not  hesitate 
to  do  whatever  it  might  be  in  his  power  to  do  to  revenge 
her  wrongs,  he  is  stung  to  the  quick  by  the  knowledge 
that,  however  deeply  he  may  have  felt  the  murder  of  his 


HAMLET'S  LOVE  AND   JEALOUSY.  69 

father,  he  has  failed  to  do  what  Laertes  would  have  done 
if  in  his  place.     As  he  confesses  to  Horatio, — 


Hence 


'  By  the  image  of  my  cause  I  see 
The  portraiture  of  his;"  .  .  . 


..."  The  bravery  of  his  grief  did  put  me 
Into  a  towering  passion." 


When  therefore  he  hears  Laertes's  wild  ejaculations,  he 
advances,  exclaiming, — 

11  What  is  he  whose  grief 

Bears  such  an  emphasis  ?  whose  phrase  of  sorrow 
Conjures  the  wandering  stars,  and  makes  them  stand 
Like  wonder-wounded  hearers?     This  is  I, 
Hamlet  the  Dane  !" 

He  says,  "  I  loved  Ophelia  ;"  he  means,  "  I  loved  my 
father,  and,  prate  as  you  will,  I  would  do  as  much  for  him 
as  you  for  Ophelia." 

"  Nay,  an  thou'lt  mouth, 
I'll  rant  as  well  as  thou.'? 

All  this  occurs  before  Horatio,  and  it  is  partly  the  humili- 
ation of  feeling  that  Horatio  may  despise  him  when  he 
compares  him  with  Laertes,  that  leads  to  this  wild  out- 
burst. 

If  Hamlet  be  considered  as  in  love  with  Horatio,  his 
treatment  of  Ophelia  is  easily  explained  as  caused  by 
jealousy. 

According  to  the  folio  editions  of  the  drama,  which  may 


tO  THE  MYSTERY  OF  HAMLET. 

be  considered  as  embodying-  Shakespeare's  final  intention, 
it  is  Horatio  who  brings  to  the  queen  the  news  of  Ophe- 
lia's madness,  enlarging  upon  all  that  she  says  and  does, 
and  thus  proving  that  he  must  have  spent  much  time  with 
her,  and  have  been  upon  terms  of  intimacy  with  her. 
Clarke  remarks,  "  We  think  there  is  something  exquisitely 
appropriate  in  making  Hamlet's  beloved  friend  Horatio 
the  one  who  watches  over  and  tenderly  thinks  for  Ophelia 
during  the  Prince's  absence,  and  brings  her  to  his  mother 
alone." 

Upon  the  only  occasion  when  the  three  are  seen  to- 
gether, Hamlet  carefully  seats  Horatio  upon  one  side, 
while  he  himself  monopolizes  Ophelia,  and,  notwithstand- 
ing his  bitter  raillery  of  the  morning  of  the  same  day 
against  her,  he  now  treats  her  with  a  pretence  of  courtesy, 
and  engrosses  her  conversation.  His  coarseness  treads 
upon  the  very  verge  of  the  license  allowed  by  the  times, 
and  reveals  anything  rather  than  love,  but  to  Ophelia  it  is 
a  welcome  change  from  the  bitter  reproaches  which  he 
had  that  day  heaped  upon  her. 

May  it  not  have  been  to  the  intimacy  between  Horatio 
and  Ophelia  that  Hamlet  alludes  when  he  says  to  her,  "  If 
you  be  honest  and  fair,  your  honesty  should  admit  no  dis- 
course to  your  beauty"  ? 

At  this  time  Hamlet  has  in  some  way  discovered  that 
listeners  are  posted  to  overhear  their  conversation,  and  that 
Ophelia  has  lent  herself  to  a  plot  to  entrap  him.  So,  in 
answer  to  her  question,  "  Could  beauty,  my  lord,  have 
better  commerce  than  with  honesty?"  he  replies, — 

"  Ay,  truly  ;  for  the  power  of  beauty  will  sooner  transform 
honesty  from  what  it  is  to  a  bawd  than  the  force  of  honesty 


HAMLET' S  LOVE  AND   JEALOUSY.  VI 

can  translate  beauty  into  his  likeness  ;  this  was  sometime  a 
paradox,  but  now  the  time  gives  it  proof." 

May  it  not  be  that  Hamlet  means  here  that  the  power 
of  Horatio's  straightforward  honesty  and  incapacity  for 
deception  has  failed  to  so  translate  her  into  his  likeness  as 
to  make  her  incapable  of  joining  in  a  plot  against  one 
whom  she  has  received  as  a  lover  ?  His  warning  to  Polo- 
nius  seems  based  upon  some  such  intimacy  between  Hora- 
tio and  Ophelia  as  that  above  referred  to : 

';  Have  you  a  daughter?" 
11 1  have,  my  lord." 

"  Let  her  not  walk  i'  the  sun ;  conception  is  a  blessing  ;  but 
not  as  your  daughter  may  conceive : — Friend,  look  to  't." 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

ADDITIONAL   FEMININE   TRAITS. 

IF  Hamlet  were  so  situated  as  to  make  marriage  impos- 
sible, an  explanation  would  be  given  of  his  raillery  against 
marriage  and  of  the  light  in  which  he  regarded  it.  For 
him  there  is  none  of  the  sweetness  and  purity  which  unite 
two  wedded  lovers,  and  he 

"  Takes  off  the  rose 

From  the  fair  forehead  of  an  innocent  love, 
And  sets  a  blister  there.'' 

To  be  married,  is,  to  him,  but  to  be  a  breeder  of  sinners. 
His  mother's  second  marriage  is  merely 

"  Wicked  speed,  to  post 
"With  such  dexterity  to  incestuous  sheets  ;'•' 

and,  in  his  interview  with  his  mother,  his  disgust  at  the 
marital  intimacy  outweighs  all  other  thoughts  ;  his  censure 
of  her  is  evoked  by  that  almost  alone,  and  his  words  are 
rather  those  of  the  diseased  imagination  of  one  shut  out 
from  all  possibility  of  marriage,  than  of  the  feelings  im- 
planted by  nature  in  the  hearts  of  the  young,  leading  them 
to  look  upon  a  loving  marriage  as  the  highest  earthly 
good,  the  culmination  of  human  happiness. 
72 


ADDITIONAL   FEMININE    TRAITS.  73 

It  is  hardly  supposable  that  the  course  of  the  mother 
could  so  have  affected  a  son,  or  that  he  would  use  to  her 
such  words  as  those  we  find.  The  reproof  is  rather  such 
as  one  woman  might  administer  to  another. 

Hamlet's  feeling  regarding  marriage  is  summed  up  in 
his  words  to  Ophelia : 

UI  say,  we  will  have  no  more  marriages;  those  that  are 
married  already,  all  but  one,  shall  live ;  the  rest  shall  keep  as 
they  are." 

His  detestation  of  the  conduct  of  his  mother  seems  even 
to  outweigh  that  with  which  he  regards  the  king.  When 
first  he  learns  the  truth,  his  exclamation, — 

"  0  most  pernicious  woman  !" — 
comes  before  that  of 

"  0  villain,  villain,  smiling,  damned  villain  !" 

and  this  disposition  seems  to  be  well  known  to  his  father, 
for  he  cautions  him, — 

11  But,  howsoever  thou  pursues!  this  act, 
Taint  not  thy  mind,  nor  let  thy  soul  contrive 
Against  thy  mother  aught." 

And  Hamlet  himself  admits  the  same  disposition  to  seek 
revenge  rather  upon  his  mother  than  upon  the  murderer, 

in  the  lines, — 

"  Now  to  my  mother. 
O  heart,  lose  not  thy  nature  ;  let  not  ever 
The  soul  of  Nero  enter  this  firm  bosom  ; 
Let  me  be  cruel,  not  unnatural ; 


\ 


74  THE   MYSTERY  OF  HAMLET. 

I  will  speak  daggers  to  her,  but  use  none ; 
My  tongue  and  soul  in  this  be  hypocrites  ; 
How  in  my  words  soever  she  be  shent, 
To  give  them  seals  never,  my  soul,  consent !" 

Why  should  Hamlet  fear  that,  like  Nero,  he  might  be- 
come a  matricide  ? 

Hunter,  commenting  upon  this  passage,  says, — 

"  That  the  thought  should  arise  detracts  from  our  admi- 
ration of  his  character,  as  much  as  it  precludes  approba- 
tion or  silent  admission  of  the  moral  taste  discovered  in 
this  play  by  its  author.  It  is,  besides,  dramatically  im- 
proper; for,  in  the  first  place,  his  mother  had  done  noth- 
ing to  deserve  it ;  it  is  not  even  insinuated  against  her 
that  she  was  acquainted  with  the  manner  of  her  former 
husband's  death.  Her  offence  was  marrying  again  too 
soon,  and,  in  addition  to  this,  that  her  second  husband  was 
brother  to  the  first.  In  the  next  place,  such  a  deed  would 
not  only  delay  the  execution  of  the  high  behest  of  the 
ghost,  which  is  the  main  purpose  of  the  drama,  but  would 
in  all  probability  have  entirely  frustrated  it ;  and  Hamlet 
cannot  be  supposed  not  to  have  foreseen  that  such  would 
be  the  result.  Hamlet  a  matricide  would  have  become 
instantly  an  object  of  universal  odium.  In  fact,  the  truth 
cannot  and  ought  not  to  be  concealed  that,  popular  as  this 
play  is,  not  in  England  only,  but  all  the  world  over,  there 
are  parts  in  it  which  seem  quite  at  variance  with  the  ordi- 
nary modes  of  thinking  of  its  author/' 

When  we  find  faults  in  Shakespeare,  the  cause  may  be 

rather  in  our  own  understanding  than  in  the  author's  con- 

/ception  ;  and  if  we  imagine  that  the  poet  here  portrayed  a 

woman  incapable  of  accomplishing  the  revenge  which  the 


ADDITIONAL   FEMININE   TRAITS.  75 

perturbed  spirit  of  her  father  had  imposed  upon  her, 
driven  to  the  borders  of  distraction  by  unbearable  burdens, 
suffering  from  a  hopeless  love  that  she  might  never  reveal, 
tortured  by  jealousy,  sorely  sensitive  to  all  a  woman's 
natural  faults,  and  incensed  far  more  at  the  sacrifice  of  per- 
sonal purity  made  by  her  mother  in  marrying  again  so 
speedily,  than  even  by  the  murder  of  her  father;  shrink- 
ing from  the  mortal  struggle  with  the  king,  fearing  blood- 
shed, and  viewing  the  possibility  of  her  own  death  with  a 
shuddering  horror,  and  hence  anxious  to  find  some  escape, 
some  easier  method  of  fulfilling  her  duty ;  that  which 
before  seemed  at  variance  with  all  our  ordinary  modes  of 
thinking  now  becomes  an  exhibition  of  the  deepest  human 
feeling,) 

To  pour  upon  another  woman,  and  she  an  erring  one, 
open  to  censure,  a  volley  of  burning  blame,  was  much 
easier  than  with  sword  in  hand  to  attack  the  king  in 
mortal  combat.  Here  was  a  task  which  Hamlet  could  do/ 
efficiently,  and  from  this  he  did  not  shrink.  Poor  soul ! 
he  wanted  to  be  firm  and  cruel  in  order  to  be  able  to  carry 
out  the  ghost's  behest,  and  his  firmness,  although  it 
vanished  at  the  sight  of  his  uncle,  could  carry  him  easily 
enough  through  a  scolding-match  with  his  mother ;  but  as 
for  her  life  being  in  danger,  that  was  but  an  exaggeration 
of  his  feelings  by  which  Hamlet  endeavored  to  deceive 
himself:  he  could  strut  and  bellow  bravely  before  an 
erring  woman,  and  so  he  endeavored  to  screw  his  courage 
to  the  sticking- point  and  prepare  himself  for  the  bloody 
work  which  fate  had  ordained  for  him  How  well  he 
succeeded  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  immediately  after  the 
utterance  of  these  words — in  fact,  almost  before  they  have 


7G  THE  MYSTERY  OF  HAMLET. 

died  upon  his  lips — destiny  gives  him  the  opportunity  for 
which  he  has  endeavored  to  persuade  himself  that  he  has 
been  seeking,  and  again  his  courage  fails  him,  and  he 
turns  his  back  upon  it,  with  another  brave  speech  by 
which  again  he  tries  to  excuse  himself  to  his  own  heart. 

There  is  noticeable  in  Hamlet  a  quickness  of  apprecia- 
tion of  difference  of  sex,  that  would  indicate  that  the 
subject  was  one  upon  which  his  mind  was  often  fixed. 
When,  for  instance,  he  remarks, — 

"And  yet,  to  me,  what  is  this  quintessence  of  dust?  man 
delights  not  me," — 

observing  that  Rosencrantz  laughs,  he  instantly  adds, — 

"  No,  nor  woman  neither,  though,  by  your  smiling  you 
seem  to  say  so.'"' 

Again,  in  his  dialogue  with  the  grave-digger,  when  he 
asks, — 

"  What  man  dost  thou  dig  it  for?" — 

and  receives  the  reply, — 

i i  For  no  man,  sir," — 
he  immediately  questions, — 

"  What  woman  then  ?" 

When  Hamlet,  seeing  the  skull  thrown  from  the  grave 
''  knocked  about  the  mazzard  with  a  sexton's  spade,"  ex- 
claims, "  Did  these  bones  cost  no  more  the  breeding,  but 
to  play  at  loggats  with  'em  ?    mine  ache  to  think  on't," 
/this  instinctive  thought  of  the  cost  of  pain,  anxiety,  and 


ADDITIONAL   FEMININE   TRAITS.  77 

danger  by  which  they  came  into  being,  seems  thoroughly 
feminine. 

Hamlet's  bodily  characteristics  seem  to  be  as  feminine 
as  his  mind.  He  was  small  and  delicate,  for  he  can  think 
of  no  greater  contrast  than  that  between  Hercules  and 
himself,  and  yet  was  at  least  moderately  plump,  for  during 
his  fencing-match  the  queen  says, — 

"  He's  fat  and  scant  of  breath. — 
Here,  Hamlet,  take  my  napkin,  rub  thy  brows.'' 

He  has  a  woman's  daintiness  and  sensitiveness  to  the 
weather  and  to  perfumes.  When  he  appears  upon  the 
platform,  to  wait  for  the  appearance  of  the  ghost,  his  first 
words  are, — 

il  The  air  bites  shrewdly  ;  it  is  very  cold." 

Again,  in  his  conversation  with  Osric  he  speaks  of  the 
weather,  and  blows  hot  and  cold  with  the  same  breath. 
When  handling  Yorick's  skull,  which  had  lain  in  the  earth 
three-and-twenty  years,  he  asks, — 

"Dost  thou  think  Alexander  looked  o'  this  fashion  i'  the 
earth?" 

and  receives  the  reply,  "  E'en  so,"  he  adds,  "  And  smelt 
so?  puh  !"  and  throws  down  the  skull. 

In  the  first  quarto,  when  Osric  approaches  with  the 
salutation, — 

"  Now  God  saue  thee,  sweete  Prince  Hamlet!" 
the  latter  replies, — 

11  And  vou  sir  :  fob,  how  the  muske-cod  smels  !" 


78  THE  MYSTERY  OF  HAMLET. 

And  when  Osric  says, — 

"  I  shall  deliuer  your  most  sweet  answer,' 

Hamlet  answers, — 

"  You  may  sir,  none  better,  for  y'are  spiced. 
Else  he  had  a  bad  nose  could  not  smell  a  fooled 

(  Hamlet,  too,  is  hysterical.  Edward  11.  Russell,  in  an 
essay  upon  Irving  as  Hamlet,  says, — 

"  Irving  has  noticed  that  Hamlet  is  not  merely  simple- 
minded,  frankly  susceptible,  and  naturally  self-contem- 
plative, but  has  a  trick — not  at  all  uncommon  in  persons 
whose  most  real  life  is  an  inner  one — of  fostering  and 
aggravating  his  own  excitements.  This  discovery  of  Irving 
is  a  stroke  of  high  genius,  and  will  identify  his  Hamlet  as 
long  as  the  memory  of  it  endures.  .  .  .  Does  Irving  dis- 
card the  tablets  ?  By  no  means.  But  he  makes  the  use  of 
them  lifelike  and  probable.  His  snatching  them  from  his 
pocket,  and  writing  on  them,  is  the  climax  of  an  outburst 
hardly  distinguishable  from  hysteria." 

The  faintness  which  attacks  the  prince,  after  the  revela- 
tion of  the  ghost,  is  such  as  might  trouble  a  woman : 

"  Oh,  fie  !  hold,  hold,  my  heart ; 
And  you,  my  sinews,  grow  not  instant  old, 
But  bear  me  stiffly  up." 

So  the  disguised  Julia  faints  from  excess  of  feeling.  So 
the  masquerading  Rosalind,  overcome  by  emotion,  faints, 
and  then  tries  to  excuse  herself  to  Oliver : 

u  OIL  Be  of  good  cheer,  youth  : — you  a  man  ? — You  lack  a 
man's  heart. 


ADDITIONAL   FEMININE    TRAITS.  79 

"  Ros.  I  do  so,  I  confess  it.  Ah,  sir,  a  body  would  think 
this  was  well  counterfeited  :  I  pray  you,  tell  your  "brother  how 
well  I  counterfeited. — Heigh  ho  ! — 

"  Oli.  This  was  not  counterfeit ;  there  is  too  great  testimony 
in  your  complexion,  that  it  was  a  passion  of  earnest. 

11  Ros.  Counterfeit,  I  assure  you. 

"  Oli.  Well  then,  take  a  good  heart,  and  counterfeit  to  be 
a  man. 

uRos.  So  I  do :  but,  i1  faith,  I  should  have  been  a  woman 
by  right." 

Hamlet's  physical  strength  was  no  greater  than  might 
be  expected  of  a  woman.  In  the  struggle  with  Laertes  in 
Ophelia's  grave,  he  was  instantly  overcome,  and  could  do 
no  more  than  gasp, — 

"  I  prithee  take  thy  fingers  from  my  throat." 

His  one  manly  accomplishment  was  the  art  of  fencing : 
this  requires  more  skill  than  strength,  and  therefore  Hamlet 
excelled  in  it ;  and  yet,  with  equal  skill,  superior  strength 
would  give  an  advantage,  and  therefore  Hamlet  falls  a 
little  short  of  the  best,  and  needs  odds  in  his  favor  in  a 
match  with  Laertes. 


CHAPTER   IX. 

HAMLET'S   AGE   AND    BIRTH— THE    TERMS    USED    IN 
ADDRESSING    HIM. 

HAMLET'S  youthful  beauty  was  far  greater  than  is 
natural  in  a  man  thirty  years  of  age.  The  impression 
constantly  left  by  the  references  to  him  is  that  his  ap- 
pearance was  that  of  extreme  youth.  Horatio  speaks  of 
him  as  "  Young  Hamlet,"  and  the  grave-digger  repeats 
the  phrase.  He  is  a  student  fresh  from  the  university. 

Laertes  speaks  of  his  love  as  u  a  violet  in  the  youth 
of  primy  nature."  Ophelia  testifies  as  to  his  grace  and 
beauty, — 

"  Oh,  what  a  noble  mind  is  here  o'erthrown ! 
The  courtier's,  scholar's,  soldier's,  eye,  tongue,  sword  ; 
The  expectancy  and  rose  of  the  fair  state, 
The  glass  of  fashion,  and  the  mould  of  form, 
The  observed  of  all  observers," 

with 

"  Unmatched  form  and  feature  of  blown  youth." 

Nor  is  Ophelia  alone  in  admiration  of  Hamlet.  Horatio, 
at  his  death,  exclaims, — 

11  Now  cracks  a  noble  heart." 

80 


HAMLET'S  AGE  AND  BIRTH.  81 

Fortinbras  testifies, — 

"  He  was  likely,  had  he  been  put  on, 
To  have  proved  most  royally.'' 

The  king  bears  witness  to 

"  The  great  love  the  general  gender  bear  him  ; 
Who,  dipping  all  his  faults'm  their  affection, 
Would,  like  the  spring  that  turneth  wood  to  stona, 
Convert  his  gyves  to  graces  ;" 

and  upon  another  occasion  states  that 

"  He's  loved  of  the  distracted  multitude, 
Who  like  not  in  their  judgement,  but  their  eyes." 

f 

In  the  first  quarto  there  is  nothing  to  lead  one  to  imagine 
that  Hamlet  is  more  than  a  youth,  scarcely  twenty  years 
of  age,  perhaps ;  but  in  the  later  editions  Hamlet's  age  is 
fixed  by  the  remarks  of  the  grave-digger,  and  by  the  length 
of  married  life  of  the  mimic  king  and  queen,  at  thirty 
years ;  and  yet,  with  this  increased  age  (which  was  a  de- 
liberate change  of  Shakespeare's,  as  is  shown  by  at  least 
two  other  changes  in  the  lengths  of  time  named  in  the 
grave-diggers'  scene,  and  which  therefore  had  a  purpose), 
Hamlet  remains  as  youthful  in  appearance  as  before. 

Is  not  Hamlet's  extreme  maturity  of  mind,  combined 
with  his  youthfulness  of  appearance,  notwithstanding  his 
actual  age  of  thirty  years,  strong  proof  that  here  was  a 
woman  masquerading  in  a  manly  part?  A  very  plain- 
looking  woman  will  pass  for  a  very  handsome  man,  when 
suitably  attired;  and  the  natural  brightness  and  fresh  11- 
of  her  complexion,  combined  with  absence  of  beard,  will 

6 


82  THE  MYSTERY  OF  HAMLET. 

give  her  a  boyish  appearance,  making  her  look  far  younger 
than  her  real  age. 

It  is  noticeable  that  it  is  stated  that  young  Hamlet  was 
born  the  day  that  the  last  King  Hamlet  overcame  Fortin- 
bras, — that  is  to  say,  upon  the  day  that  the  news  of  the 
combat  reached  the  court  and  people.  From  Horatio's 
narration  to  Marcellu'fe,  in  the  first  scene  of  the  drama,  it 
appears  that  this  combat  was  a  mortal,  hand-to-hand 
struggle  between  King  Hamlet  and  Fortinbras,  in  which 
the  latter  was  slain.  It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  Hamlet 
escaped  entirely  unscathed  from  such  a  contest.  The  pre- 
sumption is  reasonable  that  he  was  severely  injured,  and 
that  it  may  have  taken  him  long  to  recover  from  his 
wounds,  if  indeed  he  ever  did  fully  recover. 

News  of  the  struggle  reaches  the  court :  Fortinbras  is 
.slain,  Hamlet  wounded ;  probably  at  first  only  half-reliable 
rumors  are  received,  crowding  fast  upon  one  another, 
and  so  contradictory  as  to  make  the  actual  result  of  the 
combat  uncertain.  In  the  midst  of  the  excitement  and 
confusion  the  trial  of  the  young  queen  comes  upon  her. 
A.  son  had  been  anxiously  expected.  The  queen  knows 
that  the  successor  to  the  throne  is  chosen  by  election  of 
the  nobles,  and  that  no  daughter  could  hope  to  inherit 
the  crown. 

*  Now,  alone,  with  her  husband  seriously,  possibly  mor- 
tally, injured, — with  perhaps  some  reason  for  thinking  that 
no  other  child  would  ever  be  born  to  them  (and  none  other 
ever  was), — the  queen  gives  birth  to  their  child.  If  it 
should  prove  to  be  a  daughter,  the  disappointment  would 
be  great.  Is  it  conceivable  that,  if  the  expected  child  was 
found  to  be  a  girl,  the  queen,  with  the  aid  of  one  or  two 


HAMLETS  AGE  AND  BIRTH.  83 

faithful  attendants,  who  had  died  before  our  drama  opens, 
could  have  acted  upon  a  sudden  determination  and  suc- 
ceeded in  passing  the  child  off  as  a  son  ?  X 

This  step  once  hastily  taken  could  not  be  recalled.  If 
it  were  taken,  then  the  unhappy  child  must  be  brought  up 
as  a  boy  and  trained  to  play,  as  well  as  in  her  lay  the  power, 
the  part  of  the  expected  son  whom  she  had  replaced. 
There  could  be  no  retreat,  no  change :  the  part  once  taken 
must  be  played  through  to  the  end. 

The  queen's  moral  nature  was  not  above  this  deception : 
that   is  evident  from  her  after-career.     Hamlet   himself 
seems  to  have  inherited  much  of  her  fondness  for  dis-  v 
simulation,   combined  with  much  of  his  nobler  father's  ^ 
disposition . 

If  a  girl  were  thus  educated,  and  if  she  should  then  be 
placed  in  the  position  in  which  we  find  Hamlet,  is  not  the 
action  of  Hamlet  such  as  we  might  expect  from  a  noble  ^ 
woman  thus  unhappily  situated  ? 

If  this  wild  imagination  were  true,  could  ever  human 
being  be  more  unhappily  placed  or  deserve  a  deeper  sym- 
pathy than  the  unfortunate  Hamlet  ? 

Let  it  be  observed  that  the  spirit  of  Hamlet's  father^ 
never  calls  him  "  son"  :  that  word  is  carefully  avoided, 
although  it  is  doubtful  whether  another  appeal  of  half  the 
length,  by  a  father  to  his  son,  can  be  found,  in  which  the 
word  is  not  used.  What  more  natural  appeal  for  the  per- 
turbed spirit  than  the  yearning  cry,  "  My  son"  ?  but  it' 
never  comes. 

In  "  Fratricide  Punished,"  which  we  imagine  to  be  an 
adaptation  of  the  tragedy  in  one  of  its  earliest  forms,  be- 
fore the  character  had  grown  in  Shakespeare's  mind  to  be 


84  THE  MYSTERY  OF  HAMLET. 

\ 

anything  like  that  of  our  Hamlet,  the  ghost  says,  "  Then 
hear,  my  son  Hamlet,  what  I  have  to  tell  thee  of  thy 
father's  unnatural  death." 

Is  it  accidental  that  the  term  is  omitted  in  our  later 
forms  and  that  the  ghost  addresses  him  only  as  "  Hamlet" 
and  "  thou  noble  youth"  ? 

This  is  all  the  more  remarkable  from  contrast  with  the 
speech  of  the  usurper,  who  seldom  addresses  Hamlet  with- 
out using  that  term ;  and  at  each  repetition  of  the  word 
Hamlet  winces  as  if  a  festering  sore  had  been  rudely 
touched.  The  first  words  that  Hamlet  speaks  upon  the 
stage  are  in  answer  to  the  king's  address : 

"  And  now,  my  cousin  Hamlet,  and  my  son;'' 
at  which  Hamlet  says,  aside, — 

"  A  little  more  than  kin,  and  less  than  kind." 

This  "  kind"  should  be  read  with  a  short  vowel,  as  the 
German  word  for  "  child."  It  should  be  remembered  that 
Hamlet  had  but  recently  returned  from  Wittenberg,  and 
that  the  use  of  German  words  would  be  natural  for  him. 
Here  the  expression  is  a  protest  against  the  name  of  "  son" 
which  the  king  bestows  upon  him.  He  is  a  little  more 
than  kin,  for  he  is  Claudius's  nephew  and  also  the  son  of 
his  wife,  but  he  is  less  than  his  "  kind"  or  child. 

Additional  proof  that  the  word  "  kind"  is  used  in  its 
German  sense  of  "child"  is  found  in  the  use  of  another 
German  word,  "  crants"  (the  German  "  kranz,"  the  Danish 
"  krands"),  with  the  meaning  "  wreath,"  in  the  words  of 
the  priest  at  Ophelia's  grave : 


HAMLET'S  AGE  AND  BIRTH.  85 

"  Yet  here  she  is  allow'd  her  virgin  crants, 
Her  maiden  strewments  and  the  bringing  home 
Of  bell  and  burial." 

Another  protest  against  being  called  the  son  of  Claudius 
is  seen  in  the  continuation  of  the  conversation  between 
the  king  and  Hamlet  above  referred  to.  The  king  pro- 
ceeds,— 

"  How  is  it  that  the  clouds  still  hang  on  you?" 
and  Hamlet  answers, — 

"  Not  so,  my  lord  ;  I  am  too  much  i'  the  sun." 

Neither  of  these  passages  occurs  in  the  first  quarto  :  they 
were  after-thoughts  of  the  poet. 

This  wincing  at  the  claimed  relationship  is  shown  by 
Hamlet's  retaliation  when  he  bids  farewell  to  the  king, 
upon  his  departure  for  England,  with  the  words,  "  Fare- 
well, dear  mother."  The  unhappy  prince  finds  an  excuse 
for  the  phrase,  but  its  real  meaning  is,  "I  am  as  near 
right  in  calling  you  '  mother'  as  you  are  in  calling  me 
1  son.'  " 

In  this  connection  it  is  proper  to  notice  the  main  objec- 
tions that  may  be  urged  against  the  theory  that  we  have 
presented. 

Hamlet  speaks  of  himself  as  a  son  in  the  following 
passages : 

11  This  is  most  brave, 

That  I,  the  son  of  a  dear  father  murder 'd, 
Prompted  to  my  revenge  by  heaven  and  hell, 
Must  .  .  .  fall  a-cursing,  like  a  very  drab, 
A  scullion  !" 


86  THE  MYSTERY   OF  HAMLET. 

11  That  would  be  scann'd  : 
A  villain  kills  my  father ;  and  for  that, 
I,  his  sole  son,  do  this  same  villain  send 
To  heaven." 

"  Do  you  not  come  your  tard}T  son  to  chide, 
That,  lapsed  in  time  and  passion,  lets  go  by 
The  important  acting  of.  your  dread  command  ? 

Oh,  say!" 

In  all  these  passages  it  is  plain  that  Hamlet  speaks  of 
himself  as  he  would  appear  to  others.  In  the  first  lie 
chides  himself  for  acting  like  a  woman  ;  the  second  com- 
mences, "  That  would  be  scanned,"  indicating  clearly  the 
intention  to  look  at  his  case  from  an  external  stand-point ; 
and  as  to  the  third  instance  it  may  be  said  that  he  had 
become  so  accustomed  to  outwardly  playing  a  son's  part 
that  the  word  would  unconsciously  spring  to  his  lips.  In 
two  other  cases  he  speaks  of  himself  to  others  as  a  son, 
but  could  hardly  do  otherwise,  even  were  there  no  ques- 
tion as  to  the  truth  of  the  views  herein  advanced  : 

11  O  wonderful  son,  that  can  so  astonish  a  mother !" 

"  Besides,    to  be  demanded  of  a  sponge,   what  replication 
should  be  made  by  the  son  of  a  king?" 

Twice  the  queen  addresses  Hamlet  as  a  son : 

il  O  gentle  son, 

Upon  the  heat  and  name  of  thy  distemper 
Sprinkle  cool  patience." 

"  0,  my  son,  what  theme?" 
and  the  constant  habit  of  considering  Hamlet  as  a  son. 


HAMLET'S  AGE  AND  BIRTH.  87 

and  so  addressing  him  before  others,  may  well  account 
for  these.  Once  more,  in  speaking  to  Gruildenstern  and 
Rosencrantz,  she  says, — 

u  And  I  beseech  you  instantly  to  visit 
My  too  much  changed  son,'7 — 

and  this  is  all.  When  Polonius  announces  his  supposed 
discovery  that  Hamlet's  madness  is  caused  by  his  love  for 
Ophelia,  the  queen  answers, — 

"  It  may  be,  very  likely." 
Addressing  Ophelia,  the  queen  says, — 

"  For  your  part,  Ophelia,  I  do  wish 
That  your  good  beauty  be  the  happy  cause 
Of  Hamlet's  wildness  ;" 

and  at  her  grave  she  says, — 

11 1  hoped  thou  shouldst  have  been  my  Hamlet's  wife ; 
I  thought  thy  bride-bed  to  have  deck'd,  sweet  maid." 

But,  if  the  queen  had  been  for  thirty  years  endeavoring 
to  conceal  the  truth,  it  is  not  strange  that  she  should 
speak  of  Hamlet  in  this  manner  before  others.  It  is 
noticeable  that  when  alone  with  Hamlet  she  never  refers 
to  Ophelia, — no,  not  even  when  the  death  of  Polonius 
would  naturally  lead  to  the  question  as  to  its  effect  upon 
her  son's  relations  with  Polonius's  daughter.  One  further 
objection  may  be  noted  in  the  text: 

"  Am  I  a  coward? 
Who  calls  me  villain  ?  breaks  my  pate  across  ? 


88  THE  MYSTERY  OF  HAMLET. 

'      Plucks  off  my  beard,  and  blows  it  in  my  face  ? 

Tweaks  me  by  the  nose?  gives  me  the  lie  i'  the  throat 
As  deep  as  to  the  lungs  ?     "Who  does  me  this  ?" 

This  reference  to  plucking  off  the  beard  may  be  consid- 
ered as  a  proverbial  expression  rather  than  as  an  indica- 
tion that  Hamlet  wore  a  beard.  For  some  reason,  all 
actors  have  played  the  part  of  our  hero  with  a  smooth 
and  beardless  face,  and  have  not  found  so  playing  it  in- 
consistent with  the  words  above  quoted.  May  not  this  be 
a  tradition  of  the  stage,  coming  down  unbrokenly  from 
the  time  of  Shakespeare  to  the  present  day,  and  is  not 
this  beardless  face  one  of  the  reasons  for  the  youthful 
appearance  of  Hamlet,  notwithstanding  his  thirty  years  ? 


CHAPTEE  X. 

HAMLET'S    HINTS    OF    FEMININITY— COMPARISON 
BETWEEN    DIFFERENT    EDITIONS. 

IN  instances  in  which  Shakespeare's  heroines  are  dis- 
guised, they  frequently  slyly  allude  to  their  femininity,  or 
drop  little  remarks  from  which  clear-sighted  acuteness 
might  infer  it ;  and  there  are  some  of  Hamlet's  sayings 
which  may  pass  for  allusions  of  this  kind.  Several  of 
these  half-hints  have  already  been  noticed,  and  the  follow- 
ing are  worthy  of  attention.  Hamlet's  half-soliloquy  be- 
fore Horatio,  while  they  are  watching  for  his  father's  spirit, 
seems  of  this  nature : 

11  So,  oft  it  chances  in  particular  men, 
That  for  some  vicious  mole  of  nature  in  them, 
As,  in  their  birth, — wherein  they  are  not  guilty, 
Since  nature  cannot  choose  his  origin, — 
By  the  o'ergrowth  of  some  complexion, 
Oft  breaking  down  the  pales  and  forts  of  reason, 
Or  by  some  habit,  that  too  much  o'er-leavens 
The  form  of  plausive  manners  ;  that  these  men, — 
Carrying,  I  say,  the  stamp  of  one  defect, 
Being  nature's  livery,  or  fortune's  star, — 
Their  virtues  else, — be  they  as  pure  as  grace, 
As  infinite  as  man  may  undergo — 
Shall  in  the  general  censure  take  corruption 
From  that  particular  fault ;  the  dram  of  e'il 

-89 


90  THE  MYSTERY  OF  HAMLET. 

Doth  all  the  noble  substance  often  dout, 
To  his  own  scandal." 

And  his  assertion  to  Horatio,  a  few  moments  later, — 

"  There  are  more  things  in  heaven  and  earth,  Horatio, 
Than  are  dreamt  of  in  your  philosophy  ;" — 

is  possibly  but  a  continuance  of  the  same  brooding  over 
the  mysterious  natural  fault  in  himself  of  which  he  first 
complained.  His  protest  to  his  mother, — 

"  These  indeed  '  seem,' 
For  they  are  actions  that  a  man  might  play ;" 

may  possibly  be  an  allusion  of  the  same  kind.  His  letter 
to  Ophelia  ends  with  the  following  remarkable  clause : 

''Thine  evermore,  most  dear  lady,  whilst  this  machine  is  to 
him,  HAMLET." 

That  is  to  say,  I  am  your  faithful  lover  as  long  as  my 
body  is  known  as  Hamlet,  but  if  the  time  comes  when  it 
is  found  that  that  name  is  inappropriate  for  me  and  that 
I  have  no  right  to  bear  it,  then  you  will  see  that  I  am  not 
and  cannot  be  yours.  Just  before  the  fencing-match  which 
causes  his  death,  he  turns  to  Horatio  with  the  words, — 

:<  Thou  wouldst  not  think  how  ill  all's  here  about  my  heart ; 
But  it  is  no  matter." 

And  upon  Horatio's  hasty  protest,  "  Nay,  good  my  lord," 
—he  continues, — 

f      "It  is  but  foolery;  but  it  is  such  a  kind  of  gaingiving  as 
I    would  perhaps  trouble  a  woman." 


HAMLET'S   HINTS  OF  FEMININITY.  01 

In  "  Fratricide  Punished"  there  is  a  somewhat  'similar    , 
expression  used  by  the  queen  :  "I  doubt  much  whether 
iny  heart  will  be  at  ease,  for  I  know  not  what  kind  of 
an  approaching   misfortune    disturbs    our  spirits."     This 
womanly   foreboding   Shakespeare    seems,    later,  to  have  ) 
transferred  to  Hamlet. 

But  the  most  remarkable  hint  is  given  in  Hamlet's  dying 
words.  It  is  usually  expected  that  there  shall  be  some 
depth  of  meaning,  some  concentration  of  the  soul's  expe- 
rience, in  the  last  words  that  fall  feebly  from  the  chilling 
lips  as  the  spirit  abandons  its  grasp  upon  earthly  things : 
and  "  last  words"  are  long  remembered.  In  Hamlet's  case, 
after  beseeching  Horatio  to  live  to  tell  his  story  and  relate 

"  The  occurrents,  more  and  less, 
Which  have  solicited — " 

he  adds, — 

"  The  rest  is  silence.'1 

What  is  it  that  is  doomed  to  silence  ?  Horatio  has  known 
all  that  we  know  of  the  events  that  occur  upon  the  stage 
when  he  is  not  present :  it  is  only  necessary  to  wait  for  his 
next  appearance  to  see  proof  that  Hamlet  in  the  interim 
has  told  him  all.  Nothing  has  been  hidden  from  him. 
unless  it  be  some  solemn  life.-long  mystery,  that  must  !»•.» 
carried  into  the  grave. 

Ah,  breaking  heart,  that  even  in  death  must  suffer  in 
silence !  Can  it  be  that  the  seal  of  silence  shall  ever  be 
removed?  Shall  human  pity  ever  so  and  the  depths  of 
woe  that  engulfed  this  unhappy  life  ? 

Even  in  its  silence  it  cries  for  sympathy.    Was  its  burden 


92  THE  MYSTERY   OF  HAMLET. 

this, — that,  being  born  for  love  and  protection,  it  was  hope- 
lessly cut  off  from  all  earthly  love,  all  human  aid  ? — that, 
yearning  for  a  noble,  vigorous  nature  upon  which  to  lean, 
a  nature  that  might  complement  its  own  abundant  sweet- 
ness and  nobility  with  manly  power,  it  was  not  only  denied 
all  assistance,  but  was  compelled  to  stagger  under  a  load  of 
woes  too  heavy  for  even  the  strongest,  and  vainly  try  to 
bear  a  weight  too  severe  for  far  greater  powers  ?  Who 
knows?  Possibly  even  Shakespeare  himself  never  fully 
solved  the  riddle  which  fate  gradually  forced  upon  him  as 
Hamlet  grew  beneath  his  hand. 

*  That  the  character  grew  to  be  very  different  from 
that  which  was  intended  in  the  beginning,  and  that  the 
change  was  constantly  toward  the  development  of  the 
feminine  element  and  the  pruning  out  of  all  that  was 
inconsistent  therewith,  is  placed  beyond  all  reasonable 
^  doubt  by  a  comparison  of  the  first  and  second  quartos, 
and  is  still  further  proved  by  a  comparison  of  these  with 
"  Fratricide  Punished,"  if  it  be  admitted  that  the  latter 
is  an  adaptation  of  an  earlier  stage  of  Shakespeare's 
drama. 

It  is  remarkable  that,  of  the  five  quotations  last  given, 
only  one,  "  There  are  more  things  in  heaven  and  earth, 
Horatio,''  occurs  in  the  first  quarto.  Other  differences 
between  the  two  quartos  have  been  already  shown,  and  it 
may  now  be  noted,  in  addition  to  these,  that  the  following 
passages,  all  bearing  upon  our  theory,  are  not  found  in  the 
earlier  form  of  the  play  : 

"  This  heavy-headed  revel  east  and  west." 
"  Let  not  the  royal  bed  of  Denmark." 


HAMLET'S  HINTS  OF  FEMININITY.  93 

"  Hold,  hold,  my  heart ; 
And  you,  my  sinews." 

u  O  most  pernicious  woman  !" 
11  Let  her  not  walk  i'  the  sun." 
"  Except  my  life,  except  my  life." 
"  The  pangs  of  disprized  love." 

"  And  thus  the  native  hue  of  resolution 
Is  sicklied  o'er  with  the  pale  cast  of  thought.' 

"  The  expectancy  and  rose  of  the  fair  state, 
The  glass  of  fashion,  and  the  mould  of  form." 

a  For  what  advancement  may  I  hope  from  thee, 
That  no  revenue  hast  but  thy  good  spirits  ?" 

11  Since  my  dear  soul  was  mistress  of  her  choice, 
And  could  of  men  distinguish,  her  election 
Hath  seal'd  thee  for  herself." 

"  Give  me  that  man 

That  is  not  passion's  slave,  and  I  will  wear  him 
In  my  heart's  core,  ay,  in  my  heart  of  heart, 
As  I  do  thee." 

"  You  would  pluck  out  the  heart  of  my  mystery." 
"  That  would  be  scann'd." 

* '  Such  an  act 
That  blurs  the  grace  and  blush  of  modesty." 

u  Hyperion's  curls  ;  the  front  of  Jove  himself;  .  .  . 
A  combination  and  a  form  indeed, 
Where  every  god  did  seem  to  set  his  seal 
To  <nve  the  world  assurance  of  a  man." 


94  THE  MYSTERY  OF  HAMLET.   - 

"What  I  have  to  do 
Will  want  true  color  !  tears  perchance  for  blood." 

"  Good  night ;  hut  go  not  to  mine  uncle's  bed. 
.Assume  a  virtue,  if  you  have  it  not." 

k'  No,  in  despite  of  sense  and  secrecy, 
Unpeg  the  basket  on  the  house's  top. 
Let  the  birds  fly,  and  like  the  famous  ape, 
To  try  conclusions,  in  the  basket  creep, 
And  break  your  own  neck  down." 

"  Let  it  work  : 

For  'tis  the  sport  to  have  the  engineer 
Hoist  with  his  own  petard." 

"  I  see  a  cherub  that  sees  them." 

u  How  all  occasions  do  inform  against  me, 
And  spur  my  dull  revenge  !" 

"  How  came  he  dead  ?     I'll  not  be  juggled  with." 

"  But,  sure,  the  bravery  of  his  grief  did  put  me 
Into  a  towering  passion." 

"  He's  fat  and  scant  of  breath." 
"  As  thou'rt  a  man." 

It  may  be  observed,  also,  that  the  second  quarto  changes 
the  length  of  the  wedded  life  of  the  mimic  king  and  queen 
from  forty  years  to  thirty,  so  as  to  make  the  time  in  con- 
\  sonance  with  that  of  Hamlet's  parent's  marriage  ;  that  the 
length  of  time  for  which  the  clown  has  been  a  grave-digger 
is  also  changed  to  thirty  years,  having  previously  been  only 
twelve  years :  that  Hamlet's  letter  to  Horatio  first  appears 
the  second  quarto,  and  that  the  entrance  of  Horatio 


HAMLET'S    HINTS  OF  FEMININITY.  95 

with  Ophelia  is  not  shown  before  the  publication  of  the 
first  folio. 

In  the  first  quarto  the  ghost  says  to  Hamlet  in  relation 
to  his  mother, — 

"  Speake  to  her  Hamlet,  for  her  sex  is  weake.-' 

This  is  stricken  out  in  the  later  edition. 

The  queen  also  addresses  Hamlet  with  the  exclamation, 
"  How  now,  boy  !"  and  this  too  was  afterwards  changed. 

As  a  final  indication  of  the  truth  of  our  theory,  may  be 
noted  the  fact  of  Hamlet's  death.  The  criticism  has  been 
made,  that  the  drama  would  be  a  more  perfect  work  of  art  ^ 
if  Hamlet  were  finally  allowed  to  execute  the  ghost's  behest 
in  some  open  and  solemn  manner,  and  then,  as  in  the 
original  story  of  Hamlet,  have  so  explained  his  cause  as 
to  lead  to  universal  belief  in  the  truth  of  his  claims,  and 
to  his  investment  with  the  crown,  closing  the  drama  with 
Hamlet  left  to  a  happy,  prosperous  life. 

The  death  of  Hamlet  may  at  first  have  been  dictated  by 
a  pandering  to  the  popular  bloody-minded  taste ;  but  in 
this,  as  in  the  reason  for  delay  in  fulfilling  the  ghost's  com- 
mands, we  may  conclude  that  Shakespeare's  riper  powers 
substituted  a  sufficient  reason  in  the  character  of  the  hero. 
Hamlet  must  die,  for  the  "  cursed  spite"  under  which  he 
was  born  was  such  that  for  his  woes  there  could  be  no 
other  end  than  death. 


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